Canadian aid agency workers call for action saying starvation is rampant in Gaza

Canadian aid groups say child starvation in Gaza is worsening, as blocked aid and soaring malnutrition now affect even clinic workers' families.

Canadian aid agencies say malnutrition and starvation is rampant among children in Gaza, as well as among the aid workers trying to help them.

The Toronto-based president and CEO at Save the Children Canada said Friday the global agency’s clinics are inundated by 200 to 300 people arriving each day.

Danny Glenwright said there’s been “a tenfold” increase in the number of children suffering acute malnutrition over the past two months, and that even clinic staff are bringing their children in for help.

“Every single child is now coming in malnourished,” Glenwright said. “We’re also seeing their parents increasingly malnourished and skin-and-bones.”

That’s echoed by Canada’s executive director of Doctors Without Borders, with Sana Beg adding that members of her organization have had to donate their own blood to patients because supplies are so short.

Beg said Doctors Without Borders welcomed Canada’s recent denunciation of the Israeli government for failing to prevent the humanitarian crisis but called for immediate concrete actions that would open borders to aid trucks carrying desperately needed food and medical supplies.

“Just recently we’ve had a couple of a handful of trucks that came in with the fuel that was required. A drop in the ocean of needs, really,” said Beg.

“We have no sterile equipment, we have no clean sheets in the hospitals, our hospitals themselves are barely functional, as I said. There is no adequate or safe passage for either civilians, patients, or aid workers to be able to even arrive at medical facilities such as hospitals or clinics.”