Six hundred thousand children have been displaced by the rainy season in Colombia, said the Organization of American States (OAS) Thursday.
Pablo Gonzales, risk reduction director for the OAS, reported that the harsh rainy season is responsible for the deaths of 79 children and the displacement of up to 600,000.
The announcement was made from the “Care of Children and Adolescents Faced with Natural Disasters and Emergencies.” workshop in Bogota attended by 18 countries.
“We have more assets and more assets in danger and there are more people exposed. More than triple the gross domestic product has been exposed, we have been building vulnerability,” alerted Gonzales.
Of the total number of displaced by the13 month-long (and counting) rainy season, 35% are minors announced the director of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF), Elvira Forero who said that “since last year the institute has invested $17 million for the expansion of services in this crisis.”
Worldwide, 66 million children have been affected by harsh weather such as droughts of flooding officials at the workshop reported.