With weeks of freezing temperatures and heavy snows leaving more than half of Mongolia’s 21 provinces in urgent need of aid, UNICEF has appealed for nearly USD750,000 to face a crisis that is already seeing youngsters die and threatens scores of thousands more. “The UN is acutely aware of the need to reach increasingly isolated populations with fuel and medicines, to get those in need out to trained medical care and to provide hygiene kits to stem the spread of disease, to ensure safe delivery and newborn care and to prevent the deepening of chronic malnutrition,” UNICEF country representative Rana Flowers said. “This is an unfolding emergency. Of most recent and most urgent concern is evidence that babies and young children are dying because they cannot access the medical treatment from trained personnel that they need,” she added. (U.N. News Service)
