The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – the UN international development agency that addresses population issues – has released audio interviews with three women currently sheltering at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza, who describe the desperate situation they face, amid to successive attacks and blockades imposed by Israel.
The recordings were made over the past few days at Al Shifa Hospital, UNFPA said. One woman says she was forced to flee her home while pregnant and another lost a child in the womb during an airstrike carried out by the majority-Jewish country.
The Gaza Strip is home to 50,000 pregnant women and “around 5,500 of these women are expected to give birth next month,” according to an October 12 report from UNFPA. “This equates to 166 births per day, occurring with inadequate access to healthcare or even clean water.”
“I was under the rubble, I couldn’t move, I was nine months pregnant. There were ten days left until giving birth. They examined the fetus and found the pulse was weak and had to perform an emergency C-section,” she said. Islam Hussein, 35, said in the interview released by UNFPA: “I called my son Sanad – it means support.”
“I’m two months pregnant and I’ve had a hemorrhage before,” said 24-year-old Reham Rashad Bakr. “There is a treatment I should have, but I can’t,” she said in the audio interview. “Pregnant women like me should drink milk and eat eggs. All the bakeries were bombed. There is no bread or water.”
Alaa Al Bayaa, a 30-year-old pregnant Palestinian woman, said that when she went to the doctor she was told that her baby had died.
“The doctor told me there is no pulse, there is no hope,” she said. “This means my fetus is dead and needs to be removed from my uterus.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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