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Poor sanitation killing East Timorese children: charity

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Schoolchildren wash their hands on October 12, 2009. An international charity focussed on safe water and sanitation, WaterAid says children are dying needlessly in East Timor due to poor sanitation. [Reuters]

An international charity focussed on safe water and sanitation says children are dying needlessly in East Timor due to poor toilet facilities. 

WaterAid Australia estimates more than 1,000 children die from diarrhoea in East Timor each year and poor sanitation is a reason for this.  Chief Executive of WaterAid, Adam Laidlaw says improving sanitation is not a priority within the aid system and the Australian Government needs to do more. "But we really want to see a bit more, we reckon that Australia's fair share for water and sanitation financing would be around about $350 million per year. And currently the spend is around 165 million dollars a year," he said.  Mr Laidlaw says diarrhoea rates can be cut by more than a third when there's a safe toilet.  "Over 2.5 billion people around the world who don't have a safe place to go to the toilet, and one of the outcomes of that particularly in countries like Timor Leste is that we have a significant number of child deaths each year due to diarrhoea."

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