United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded that 2,500 children be immediately evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment after meeting with US doctors who said the children were at imminent risk of death in the coming weeks, Reuters reports.

Just days before a ceasefire began on Jan 19, the World Health Organisation said more than 12,000 patients were waiting for medical evacuations and hoped they could be ramped up during the truce.

Among those patients urgently needing treatment are 2,500 children, said Feroze Sidhwa, a California trauma surgeon who worked in Gaza from March 25 to April 8 last year.

“There’s about 2,500 children who are at imminent risk of death in the next few weeks. Some are dying right now. Some will die tomorrow. Some will die the next day,” Sidhwa told reporters after meeting with Guterres.

“Of those 2,500 kids, the vast majority need very simple things done,” he said, citing the case of a 3-year-old boy who suffered burns to his arm. The burns had healed, but the scar tissue was slowly cutting off blood flow, leaving him at risk of amputation, said Sidhwa.