Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta – Around half of Indonesia's children aged under five suffer from malnutrition as economic crisis plunges families into poverty, a UNICEF official said. The figure, based on UNICEF research and experience in the field, represents around 11.5 million children.

"It has become a national disaster," Stephen Woodhouse, head of the United Nations Children's Fund for Indonesia and Malaysia, told Reuters in a recent interview. "Up to half of Indonesian children under five are malnourished and half of them are babies under two."

UNICEF has not yet officially updated figures on malnutrition since its last update before the crisis in mid-1997, when around 750 children were said to be dying daily in Indonesia, at least 60 percent of them from malnutrition. But it says its experience in the field since then shows the situation has worsened dramatically.

As the country struggles to recover from its worst economic crisis in decades, triggered by a collapse in the value of the rupiah currency, customers' buying power has also plunged.

"Now a lot of people cannot afford to buy basic essentials to feed their babies and children," he added. "Public health facilities have also deteriorated."

Many deaths are directly attributable to malnourishment while others stem from related problems like diarrhoea, Woodhouse said.

"The rate of malnutrition among pre-school age children in Indonesia is the second worst in Southeast Asia," he said, adding the worst was in Cambodia.

There are around 23 million children aged under five in Indonesia, including eight million under two, he said.

Woodhouse said that even before the crisis unfolded, about 35 percent of pre-school children were mildly malnourished. Many cases stemmed from lack of nutritional knowledge. "A lot of families had misconceptions about treating the babies which led to mild malnutrition," he said.

Indonesia's economic crisis broke out in mid-1997 followed by riots and unrest as prices of basic necessities soared. Millions of Indonesians have been forced into abject poverty.

Areas prone to malnutrition now include big cities and rural areas in Java, the Indonesian archipelago's most populous island, Woodhouse said. Previously they were confined to the eastern part of the country where the soil was not as fertile, he said.

Reports of deaths due to malnutrition have been on the rise in recent months from various areas.

"The urban poor suffer the most because they have no resources of land to plant vegetables and other source of important vitamins," Woodhouse said.

"The future of Indonesia lies in these children," Woodhouse said. "If there is no serious effort to overcome [the problem] then Indonesia's crisis would be prolonged."