Sujira and Night

Sujira, 26, has been staying at a makeshift evacuation centre inSujira and Night, Ayutthaya, Thailand. since the beginning of October. Sujira arrived at the centre nine months pregnant and was terrified of giving birth under the desperate conditions at the centre - an unfinished building where families sleep on the floor, in the open, with little privacy, clean water or protection from the elements.

"I was really scared about having to deliver my baby," she recalls. Even now that Sujira has safely delivered her son Night, 16 days old, she remains afraid for his wellbeing and that of her older son. Conditions at the centre are far from adequate, with limited access to clean water for cooking - and Sujira is particularly worried about the food they are given to eat.

"It's not very safe. My older son just had diarrhoea. His forehead was burning. He was sick for three days. He's only now getting better from the fever."

"In the morning we have rice soup - I think it's from this soup that he got sick. Many people I speak to here are worried about this. I can't say anything though because people are making it for us - if we don't eat it, we don't eat. Sometimes I wait until later when other food is given out."

"I'm not eating very much because I'm worried about the food - I'm concerned about what I eat because I have to breastfeed my baby."

"I'm worried now about money - if I go to a new or different hospital, I don't have my health card."

Save the Children is working to provide families with access to clean water for drinking, cooking and washing, helping keep families like Sujira's safe from diseases like diarrhoea as floodwaters extend across the country.

Yassin, 12, Ayutthay, Thailand

Yassin is from Ayutthaya, one of the areas hardest-hit by floods in Thailand. He's been staying at an evacuation centre at Thammasat University for the past three days, but sought refuge at a different centre before that. Just over a week ago Yassin fled his home, leaving his friends behind, when water levels rose and flooded his house.

"My friend Tip is living on the street in a tent, my friends Bai and Boo are also in a tent on the road. My friends Sabad, Toolanf, Ameet, Chameen and Chadee are the ones that are here," Yassin explains.

Yassin tells of another friend, Don, who didn't make it to safety in time. "One of my friends, Don, died in the water from an electricity shock." Yassin remembers how the loss of their child had a profound impact on Don's parents, and describes how he witnessed the grief of his friends' parents. "His parents were really sad and they were crying all the time. When I went to the funeral, the grown-ups told me there was still electricity in him and I was afraid."

Yassin now has nightmares where his friend Don visits him at night. "We were very close friends. In my dream he asks me if I'm happy and tells me he missed me. He asks me if I want to come stay with him. I said no. I don't want to go with him. I want to stay here," Yassin says. Despite his nightmares, Yassin says during the day he's been having some fun with new friends he's made, playing games and drawing in the Child-Friendly Spaces, safe play areas, run by volunteers trained by Save the Children and its local partner.

"I wake up in the morning and the volunteers come and get me to bring me to the children's space. We do some exercise together and then we get to play. We play with Play-Dough and we can draw there too." I like drawing and playing sports."

"On the first day I was here, the volunteers gave me toys and costumes to play with, and we played dress up. "On the second day, the volunteers brought me to play ball - I've been playing with my cousins, my brother and some other relatives."

Playing at the Child-Friendly Space and participating in different activities run for children at the evacuation centers, Yassin says he is making new friends. "I've made six new friends so far. I play football with them, and hide and seek, but I get scared at night so we only play during the day. I'm afraid of the ghosts at night."

Save the Children works with a local partner to train a network of volunteers to facilitate activities and games for children at the Child-Friendly Spaces, while also ensuring the children have an adult they trust and can talk to about the difficulties they face because of the floods.

Wei Oo Koo, 30 months, Rangsit, Thailand

Rangsit was once a bustling 300,000-strong industrial district just north of Bangkok housing dozens of car, electronics and textile factories, which are now closed. Tiny boats inched their way along the flooded streets, past convenient stores with broken windows and empty shelves, deserted market places, and past endless rows of empty houses.

Save the Children are delivering emergency food baskets and hygiene kits - which had soaps, shampoo, sanitary napkins and towels - but the boats have no engines so volunteers have to push the boat along with water up to their waists. The stench is now unbearable and some areas smelled of rancid food and decomposing rubbish while others stank of leaking sewers.

The filthy water did not prevent children from playing everywhere, splashing and swimming in the floodwater. It takes twenty minutes to cover just a couple hundred metres up to a small house where a migrant family from Myanmar lives.

Other families gathered there for the day, without anything else to do and no jobs to go to since the factories have closed. The father, who refused to be named - many migrants are undocumented because employers fail to process their paperwork -was extremely worried about his son, 30-month-old child, Wei Oo Koo. The young boy had been suffering from diarrhoea ever since he went into the water. "He was playing in the floodwaters one morning and that same evening he started suffering diarrhoea. He is in a lot of pain," the father explained.

He added that he does not know where to look for a doctor to help treat his son. In the meantime, he is using re-hydration salts and other traditional Thai remedies supposed to help with abdominal pain, indigestion and diarrhoea but have been of little help, and is worried that he will need something else. "I don't know what to do. I will need to find a hospital for my son soon if he doesn't get better. If not, I fear the worst." he said.

Many people living in Rangsit were evacuated in the floods, and some migrant families have returned to Myanmar and other neighbouring countries. They are fleeing the worst floods Thailand has faced in half a century, affecting more than a fifth of the country's 64 million population since July and leaving more than 600 people dead, with 17 out of 77 provinces still underwater.

Food prices have also risen sharply. A dozen eggs for example used to cost 30-35 baht (US$1) before the floods, but have doubled since then. Most of the several hundred factories in four industrial estates have been damaged and shut in this province alone, so with little work available and dwindling savings, those who have remained behind have little hope for the future.

To make matters worse, many public services have been affected as health workers and teachers cannot go to work. Schools, hospitals and clinics remain closed in many areas, according to authorities, putting 1.3 million children at risk of diseases such as severe diarrhoea and skin infections due to the stagnant water, and unclean water supplies for cooking and drinking.

Save the Children is one of the leading NGOs responding to the flood emergency in Thailand. The children's charity is distributing life-saving food, hygiene and infant baskets to children and their families.