Death of childhood

 

 

Starvation is an epidemic that hits one person every second somewhere in the world. And 85% of the victims are children.

The 1994 Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Carter shot to fame with a photograph that portrayed a frail Sudanese child struggling to reach the U.N. Food Center – and eagerly awaiting her death is a vulture. Although this snapshot of melancholy fetched Carter a Pulitzer, it also was a significant cause for his death.

The displaced Darfurians in Sudan lamented endlessly about children starving at the Darfur refugee camp. As civilians traveled from one camp to another in quest of food, puny lives gave in to the mammoth scourge of hunger. The pandemonium is not just pertaining to Sudan. In 1996, UNICEF declared that around 45,000 children all over the world are dying of hunger and disease every month. India precedes any other South Asian country in terms of child malnutrition with 53% of the children below five being underweight. China too, despite its formidable status quo can be condemned of carelessness towards children; and the brutal treatment of orphans in Shanghai including starvation and torture, cannot be overlooked. In Europe, children belonging to places like Moldova and Kosovo also meet the same fate.

Carter died, leaving behind a situation to be fully comprehended. But the irony is that the situation has not caused a stir yet. Mankind is so involved in petty fights that the purpose of subsistence itself has become faint and that compunctions are also least likely to be felt.

If things don’t improve it may not be long before someone again receives a Pulitzer for capturing a moment where this time a vulture is actually feasting on the carcass of some innocuous infant somewhere.