Above: a girl walks through flooded streets in Cap-Haitien during Hurricane Sandy in Haiti (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The United Nations Children’s Fund is launching an appeal for $11.5 million in Haiti as part of a wider $1.4 billion it is seeking to meet “immediate and essential needs” of children in 45 countries.

The money UNICEF is seeking in Haiti would target areas including nutrition, health, water, sanitation, hygiene and education, according to a UN release.

The organization said the funding would provide “therapeutic feeding” to 30,000 “sveerely malnourished” children in Haiti under five years old, along with providing sanitation services to 200,000 people living in temporary camps.

The money would also be used to organize “reading activities and socialization” to 200,000 children in “child-friendly spaces,” according to the release.

“Children are extremely vulnerable in emergency situations because they often live in unsanitary and dangerous conditions, exposed to health risks, violence, exploitation and neglect,” said Ted Chaiban, director of the Office of Emergency Programmes at UNICEF.

Much of the financing UNICEF is seeking targets war-torn Syria.