Millions of children in Latin America are at risk from droughts and floods unleashed by a historic El Nino, the UN children's agency Unicef warned, in a report BSS carried from AFP. It said 25.8 million children, one in seven in the region, face growing risks.
El Nino is a natural climate pattern that warms the surface of the equatorial Pacific and shifts wind and rainfall around the world. This year's episode is projected to be the strongest on record.
In Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, drought is hurting harvests and raising the risk of malnutrition for children who already struggle to get food and safe water, Unicef said. Parts of Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Venezuela face a higher risk of wildfires, and falling river levels could cut off riverside communities in the Amazon basin.
On the Pacific coast of Mexico and South America, heavier rain will raise the risk of flooding and damage to schools and health facilities. The agency also warned of more hardship for Cuba and Haiti, and noted El Nino's hand in an unusually intense Pacific hurricane season.
The effects "threaten to push even more children into deeper vulnerability and increase existing inequalities," said Roberto Benes, Unicef's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, adding that a single major storm can disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.
Photo: NOAA / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: BSS
Comments
(0)