ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: More children have died of diarrhoea — a result of poor sanitation and polluted water — than all the people killed in armed conflicts since World War II, statistics available with United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) show.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s State of Human Rights Report 2001, the rate of diarrhoeal infections is 37.1 per cent in pre-urban slums. Moreover, some 2,000 under- fives die daily in Pakistan, mainly due to preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections and malaria. A total of 700,000 under-fives are thought to die annually in Pakistan, the report said.

According to UNESCAP, polluted water and poor sanitation kill two children each minute. Most of the victims live in Asia where contaminated water is the biggest killer of children.

Growing population, urbanization, and economic development have put great pressures on the quantity and quality of Asia’s fresh water supply. Inadequately enforced legislation in recent years as well as ineffective water resource planning, management, and coordination are to blame, according to “State of the Environment in Asia and the Pacific 2000”, which is a joint publication of UNESCAP and the Asian Development Bank.

A delegation from UNESCAP, led by UNESCAP executive secretary Kim Hak-Su, and including Ravi Sawhney, chief of UNESCAP’s Environmental and Natural Resources Development Division, and Mohammad A. Khan, chief of the environment section, will meet a gathering of the representatives of various governments in Johannesburg for the “World Summit on Sustainable Development”, from August 26 to September 4, to implement the necessary measures to tackle this crisis.

The seven initiatives agreed upon by Asian and Pacific members of UNESCAP for follow-up to the summit include fostering integrated management of fresh water resources and basins, improving and expanding the delivery of services, fostering water conservation and increasing system efficiency, promoting regional cooperation and using shared water resources for mutual benefit.