-- MASUM Press Release, 23 March 2005

(KOLKATA, India, March 23, 2005) Some 500 people marched to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) office in Kolkata on Wednesday to vent their anger over the international agency's neglect of thousands of children starving in West Bengal. 

The protesters slammed UNICEF for failing to protect the children and ignoring its mission to mitigate the suffering of children, particularly poverty and malnutrition.

"Children died of hunger right on its doorstep. But UNICEF has taken no action whatsoever to intervene in the situation," said Kirity Roy, the protest organiser.

The number of death from starvation is growing among the poor, especially those families forcibly evicted from their homes at the Bellilious Park in Howrah municipality by the authorities without any compensation and resettlement.

More than 1,000 children from the Bellilious Park have been living with their families in inhumane conditions for the past two years -- at a rubbish dumpsite in Belgachhia and on the streets along railway tracks and bypasses.

They are being deprived of basic facilities for survival, suffering from poverty, malnutrition and other diseases due to contaminated water and the filthy and unhygienic environment.

Another 12,000 children face a similar fate in the districts of Murshidabad, Nadia and Dinajpur.

The demonstrators, mainly victims from these areas, demanded the U.N. agency to take immediate steps to ensure the food security and medical care for the children. 

They also highlighted the latest case of a five-year-old girl, Lachhmi, who died from hunger in the Belgachhia dumping ground earlier this month. She was the third child in the family starved to death.

The state government and other international agencies including UNICEF have done nothing to help the people although they were repeatedly informed of the appalling situation by local and regional human rights groups.

"UNICEF claims to have done a good deal for the well-being of these ill-fated children, but its officials haven't paid a single visit to these evicted people," said Roy, who is also the secretary of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), a rights group based in Howrah.

"Had UNICEF or the government taken any steps in the last few weeks, at least Lachhmi could have been saved," he said.

The girl's mother, E.M. Parvati, mourned that she could not save three of her children from death. Parvati, a widow, is suffering from tuberculosis and cannot afford to pay for any medical treatment.

UNICEF chief of West Bengal Rudolph Schwenk told protesters that his organisation could follow up the matters through the government.

Schwenk expressed disbelief of what had been reported to him as if he was not aware of what was happening, Roy said. "He also expressed his apologies for not being able to meet representatives of MASUM and the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) when they tried to contact UNICEF earlier," Roy said. MASUM is a partner group of the AHRC, a Hong Kong-based regional organisation.

"UNICEF should be in fact sorry for people dying out of starvation rather than expressing apologies of missing a meeting with concern groups," Roy said.

The problem of poverty and starvation in West Bengal is severe, Roy said, citing other examples in Dayarampur, Taltali, Paraspur, Chuanpara and the Jalangi block of the Murshidabad district.

One five-year-old boy was reported to have eaten dirt before he died in Murshidabad in February. In another case, about 28 families in Anahar in the South Dinajpur district have been suffering in extreme conditions with three children already reported dead and 15 other people dying.

"The authorities simply continue their criminal neglect, ignoring deaths and giving the least value to people's suffering," Roy said.

The demonstrators also protested at the Governor House and the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal on Wednesday.

Seven representatives of the protesters were barred by more than 50 policemen and the marshall of the Legislative Assembly from entering the assembly compound to meet the legislators despite the fact that they had entry passes issued by the speaker's office.

Opposition leader Pankaj Banerjee and another member of the assembly Tapas Ray came out of the compound to meet the representatives. Banerjee offered to make necessary arrangements for Parvati and her starving daughter to receive medical treatment.

The protesters later staged a sit-in protest at Esplanade, in front of the Metro Cinema Hall, in Kolkata. They demanded the authorities to provide immediate relief, resettlement, compensation, medical care and other poverty eradication measures for them.

Roy said at the rally that there would be further actions, such as a public hearing to be held in late April or early May on the plight of the families evicted from the Bellilious Park and the cases of starvation death reported from Jalangi in the Murshidabad district.

For more details, please contact Kirity Roy at (91-33) 2640 4118 or 2650 8700.

The Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) is a human rights non-governmental organization based in Howrah, West Bengal.