UN chief demands evacuation of 2,500 Gaza children at 'imminent risk' of death

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday demanded that 2,500 children be immediately evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment after meeting with U.S. doctors who said the children were at imminent risk of death in the coming weeks.

The four doctors had all volunteered in Gaza during the 15-month-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas that has devastated the enclave of more than 2 million people and its healthcare system.

Just days before a ceasefire began on Jan. 19, the World Health Organization said more than 12,000 patients were waiting for medical evacuations and it had hoped they could be ramped up during the truce.

Among those patients urgently needing treatment are 2,500 children, said Feroze Sidhwa, a California trauma surgeon who worked in Gaza from March 25 to April 8 last year.

"There's about 2,500 children who are at imminent risk of death in the next few weeks. Some are dying right now. Some will die tomorrow. Some will die the next day," Sidhwa told reporters after meeting with Guterres.

"Of those 2,500 kids, the vast majority need very simple things done," he said, citing the case of a 3-year-old boy who suffered burns to his arm. The burns had healed, but the scar tissue was slowly cutting off blood flow, leaving him at risk of amputation, said Sidhwa.

Ayesha Khan, an emergency doctor at Stanford University Hospital, worked in Gaza from the end of November until Jan. 1. She spoke about many children with amputations, who had no prosthetics or rehabilitation.

She held up a photo of two young sisters with amputations, who were sharing a wheelchair. They were orphaned in the attack that injured them and Khan said: "Their only chance for survival is to be medically evacuated."

"Unfortunately, the current security restrictions don't allow for children to travel with more than one caregiver," she said. "Their caregiver is their aunt, who has a baby that she is breast-feeding."

"So even though we were able to, with great difficulty, get evacuation set up for them, they won't let the aunt take her baby with her. So the aunt has to choose between the baby she's breast-feeding and the lives of her two nieces."

CLEAR PROCESS

The doctors said they are advocating for a centralized process for medical evacuations with clear guidelines.

"Under this ceasefire agreement, there is supposed to be a mechanism in place for medical evacuations. We've still not seen that process spelled out," said Thaer Ahmad, an emergency room doctor from Chicago, who worked in Gaza in January 2024.

Khan said there was no process in place to get the children out, adding: "And will they be allowed to return? There is some discussion right now of the Rafah border opening only for exits, but it's exit without right to return."

Guterres said he was "deeply moved" by his meeting with the American doctors on Thursday.

"2,500 children must be immediately evacuated with the guarantee that they will be able to return to their families and communities," Guterres posted on X after the meeting.

COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that liaises with the Palestinians, did not respond to a request for comment on the demand for medical evacuation of 2,500 children by Guterres and the doctors he met with. Israel's mission to the U.N. also did not respond to a request for comment.

At the start of this month, before the ceasefire, the WHO said 5,383 patients had been evacuated with its support since the war began in October 2023, most of those in the first seven months before the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza was closed.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Susan Heavey and Rosalba O'Brien)