The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, has warned that lack of clean water and sanitation is threatening lives in south Lebanon, where Israel's bombardment has cut off water supplies.

Daniel Toole director of emergency programmes for UNICEF says that a shortage of water and sanitation equipment, the destruction of roads and heavy fighting means that the United Nations has only managed to transport water purification kits for 1,000 families, while sanitation services are also disrupted.

"Without proper sanitation children will get diarrhoea, they will get sick and they will die. If we cannot get in with means to store water and to transport clean water we will have disease."

People who had fled the border village Rmaish told delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross that those who remained behind were drinking foul water from a pool used to collect water for irrigation.

Source: Dominic Evans, Reuters, 28 July 2006

Tags: emergencies