Disabled people are ‘lost and excluded’ when disasters hit, says UN advocate

Rescue workers help evacuate a woman in a wheelchair in a canoe at after the Cauca River overflowed due to heavy rains, in Cali, Colombia, November 2022. Photograph: Edwin Rodriguez Pipicano/Reuters

People with disabilities are most at risk and last to be looked for in disasters like earthquakes and floods, a UN official has said.

A lack of available data means they remain “lost and excluded” from rescue operations, said Gertrude Fefoame, the new chair of the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities.