2023-12-24 20:15:21
The New York Times magazine published an article today (Sunday) reviewing the life of the Ahmed family, one of the 1.9 million Gazans who, according to the United Nations, have been displaced from their homes since the start of the Iron Swords war in the Gaza Strip, who face being refugees in the harsh winter conditions.
The family arrived in the southern part of the Strip three weeks ago, just as winter arrived. The seven members of the family took shelter in a small, thin tent they built using nylon sheets and some wooden boards, which they share with 16 other relatives, the father said. “It’s not even a proper tent,” the father joked. “Those who stay in real tents are the bourgeois in Gaza.”
As mentioned, the United Nations and rights organizations have recently expressed many concerns about the further spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera and chronic diarrhea in Gaza, with the lack of clean water and unsanitary conditions. Children have been hit the hardest by the increasing rate of infectious diseases, according to UNICEF, the international organization for children.
The two daughters of the family suffered from severe stomach pains for almost two weeks, “perhaps from extreme dehydration”, said the father of the family. “She is screaming in pain, and all we can do is give her some rainwater to drink,” he said. “For 23 days, we tried to find blankets and mattresses. We slept on a thin sheet and made the sand into a kind of pillow to rest our heads on.”
Like many other displaced families in Gaza, the Ahmed family, which had to move four times since the beginning of the war, struggled to find food and water. They ate everything they could find, especially leaves, the father of the family said. He also added that no aid has reached them so far.
In order to find a source of water, they placed a bucket outside their tent through which they collected rainwater, with which they cooked and washed their clothes. “It’s still polluted water,” said the father, “but we have no other alternative. We have to adapt.”
#Collecting #rainwater #buckets #Gaza #residents #struggle #severe #cold