WASHINGTON: More children in South Asia are struggling due to severe water scarcity made worse by the impacts of climate change than anywhere else worldwide, the United Nations said Monday.
As of 2022, 739 million children were exposed to high or extremely high water scarcity, with 436m children —mostly in low- and middle-income countries — living in areas of “high or extremely high water vulnerability.”
The term is defined as a combination of high or very high water scarcity and low or very low drinking water service levels. Extreme water vulnerability is one of the key drivers of deaths among children under 5 from preventable diseases, the Unicef report stated.
The most impacted regions are countries in the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia regions.
The eight-nation region of South Asia is home to more than one-quarter of the world’s children. –Agencies
