Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the UN special rapporteur on water and sanitation, has warned that lack of access to clean drinking water in Gaza could have just as devastating a humanitarian toll as the bombing of civilians.
“At present, people have no clean water for drinking, so they have a small quantity of salinised and contaminated water,” he told Al Jazeera.
“That means – particularly for children – [that] we can expect, and I’m sure there are, thousands of [cases of diarrhea] and other diseases.”
He added that Article 7 of the Rome Statute stipulates that “cutting off civilians from basic supplies – such as food, medicine, drinking water, which is essential for the daily life of the people – is a crime against humanity”.
“This is very clear,” he said.
Source: AlJazeera