At least 100 sick children in Gaza to be evacuated to UK for urgent care

More than 100 critically ill and injured children in Gaza hope to come to the UK as soon as possible after the government announced a scheme to provide those in severe need with NHS care.

- Geneva Abdul

The government announced on Sunday that it would evacuate children from Gaza to the UK for treatment under a scheme to be announced within weeks.

While campaigners welcomed the announcement, they urged ministers to move quickly, saying children awaiting urgent medical care in the UK had died waiting, or were forced to be medically evacuated to other countries.

"We have previously had children on the list but because approval takes so long, some of those children have ended up dying," said Omar Din, a co-founder of Project Pure Hope (PPH) and a healthcare executive in NHS primary care. "The government needs to move at pace."

Through a private scheme, the charity has brought three children to the UK this year. Now, its efforts will provide a blueprint for the new taxpayer-funded scheme, which will operate in parallel.

"It's not too late in the sense that there are people who can still be helped, there are many children," Din said. But he added: "We should have done this much sooner."