RIYADH, 8 June 2008 — The Kingdom has donated SR6.8 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to finance the construction of five new basic health units in districts affected by the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, UNICEF’s Gulf Area Office in Riyadh announced yesterday.
“Thanks to the generosity of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Naif, who have helped thousands of children and their families to benefit from this assistance which would provide high-quality health and nutrition services,” said Ayman Abu Laban, UNICEF’s representative in the Gulf, adding that the funds have directly gone from the Saudi Public Assistance for Pakistan Earthquake Victims (SPAPEV) to Islamabad.
Two health units sponsored by SPAPEV will soon be completed in Abbottabad and Muzaffarabad, and construction is expected to begin on the remaining three health centers shortly. Once completed and fully equipped, each facility will provide primary care to about 60,000 people, including children and women.
“This donation is part of a series of assistance that included those to Palestinian Territories and Lebanon,” said Laban. “It is the result of a growing partnership following the signing of a memorandum of understanding in July 2007 between UNICEF and the Saudi Committee for Relief.”
The October 2005 earthquake killed an estimated 73,000 people and devastated the infrastructure in the North West Frontier Province and Kashmir. About 3.3 million people were left homeless, 42,000 children were orphaned, and 23,000 children were disabled.
UNICEF, in collaboration with the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority and its partners, has provided health and nutrition services to an estimated 2.3 million people in the six districts — about two-thirds of the affected population — by establishing high quality health centers, lifesaving interventions, such as vaccinating more than a million children against measles and developing a network of community health workers to bring trained care to the homes of over a million people in this mountainous region.
As part of a comprehensive reconstruction and rehabilitation program in earthquake-affected districts, UNICEF has supported therapeutic nutrition services to over 25,000 malnourished children and mothers, and provided safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to nearly a million people.
Efforts to promote and facilitate education served about 464,000 children, of whom over 36,000 are now attending primary school for the first time.
