Published: Less than 20 min ago
Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are among the survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and need immediate access to health care, the UN Population Fund UNFPA writes in a statement.
In Turkey, around 226,000 pregnant women were affected by the earthquake but survived. In Syria, the corresponding figure is around 130,000. About 38,800 of them are expected to give birth in the next month.
Many of the pregnant women live in makeshift camps or outdoors in the cold, and in many cases they have difficulty getting food and clean water.
Thousands of buildings – including hospitals – were destroyed in the quakes, which has meant that access to maternity care has disappeared when women need it most.
“Amid all the devastation in Syria and Turkey, women and girls affected by the earthquake must be safe and protected and able to access high-quality sexual and reproductive health care when they need it,” UNFPA Director Natalia Kanem said in the statement.
“These services save lives and must be an integral part of the efforts,” she says.