1,800 children die daily from unsafe water: UNICEF | The Malay Mail

22.3.13

1,800 children die daily from unsafe water: UNICEF | The Malay Mail

THE United Nations Children's Fund(Unicef) said Thursday that almost 90 per cent of children deaths from diarrhoeal diseases are directly linked to contaminated water, lack of sanitation, or inadequate hygiene, reports China's Xinhua news agency.  Globally, an estimated 2,000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoeal diseases and of these some 1,800 deaths are linked to water, sanitation and hygiene, the UN agency said as the international community is to mark World Water Day, which falls on Friday this year.  "Sometimes we focus so much on the big numbers, that we fail to see the human tragedies that underlie each statistic," says Sanjay Wijesekera, global head of UNICEF's water, sanitation and hygiene programme.