Dangerous skin diseases spreading among children in Gaza
Al Jazeera
More than 150,000 people have contracted skin infections in the squalid conditions prevailing in the enclave.
Wafaa Elwan’s five-year-old son cannot sleep in the Gaza tent city where she and her seven children shelter, but it is not the guns of war that cause his nightmares.
“My son can’t sleep through the night because he can’t stop scratching his body,” the anxious mother said.
The boy has white and red blotches over his feet and legs, and more under his shirt. He is one of many in Gaza suffering from skin infections, ranging from scabies to chicken pox, lice, impetigo and other debilitating rashes.
More than 150,000 people in the Palestinian territory have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions into which displaced people in the enclave have been forced since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.
“We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us,” said Elwan. Her family is one of thousands living on a sandy patch near the sea close to the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah.
