14 Million Children Suffering as Result of War in Syria and Iraq: Unicef
To give some perspective to this, 90 to 100 million people died during the Cold War worldwide from 1945 until 1991. And from 50 to 100 million people died (mostly civilians) during World War II as well.
So, a figure like this I don't think has existed in regard to children since the end of the Cold War in 1991 anywhere on earth. This is a whole lot of walking wounded and PTSD kids we are talking about here that likely are starving and not being educated for the most part either.(at least not in any useful way for themselves or the well being of life on earth in the long run).
Mar 13, 2015 · GENEVA — Around 14millionchildren are suffering hardship and trauma from the war in Syria and Iraq, the United Nations children’s agency said on ...
Mar 12, 2015 · 14millionchildren impacted by conflict in Syria and Iraq: UNICEF As Syria crisis enters fifth year, more support urged for young adolescents
Mar 12, 2015 · 14 Million Children Suffering as Result of War in Syria and Iraq, Unicef Says by NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
14 Million Children Suffering as Result of War in Syria and Iraq, Unicef Says
Photo
Syrian Kurds on the Turkish
border near Kobani waited to load their belongings onto trucks and buses
to be taken to shelters during the offensive against Islamic State
militants there in September.Credit
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
GENEVA — Around 14 million children are suffering hardship and trauma from the war in Syria and Iraq,
the United Nations children’s agency said on Thursday, highlighting the
needs of children struggling to cope with severe violence, and the
danger to the rest of the world of failing to help a generation preyed
on by extremist groups.
“Violence and suffering have not only scarred their past, they are shaping their futures,” Anthony Lake, Unicef’s director, said in a statement
released on Thursday with a report on the plight of 5.6 million
children in Syria and two million more who have fled as refugees. Close
to three million children in Iraq and 3.6 million children in
neighboring countries bearing the brunt of the influx are affected by
the conflict, Unicef estimated.
“As
the crisis enters its fifth year, this generation of young people is
still in danger of being lost to a cycle of violence — replicating in
the next generation what they suffered in their own,” Mr. Lake said.
Unicef’s
report was one of a slew of statements by international relief agencies
detailing the plight of civilians in Syria in a conflict that has
killed more than 200,000 people.
Describing 2014 as the worst year yet in the conflict, a report by 21 humanitarian agencies
on Thursday said that parties to the conflict had ignored three United
Nations Security Council resolutions demanding access for humanitarian
assistance, that the number of children needing aid had increased by
nearly one-third since the previous year, and that funding for aid
agencies had fallen steeply in relation to needs.
“This
worst humanitarian crisis of our era should be galvanizing a global
outcry of support, but instead, help is dwindling,” António Guterres,
head of the United Nations refugee agency, said in a statement Thursday.
He added: “With humanitarian appeals systematically underfunded, there
just isn’t enough aid to meet the colossal needs — nor enough
development support to the hosting countries creaking under the strain
of so many refugees.”
Across
Syria, an estimated 2.8 million children were still struggling to
pursue some form of learning amid the rubble and destruction resulting
from the conflict. An assault on a school in eastern Damascus that
killed at least 11 children in November was one of 68 school attacks
recorded in 2014, Unicef said.
In
large sections of the country controlled by the Islamic State, young
children are increasingly being pulled into active roles in the conflict
and subjected to intense indoctrination and training in the use of
weapons, said Hanaa Singer, Unicef’s representative in Syria.
“Not only are they victims, they have become involved more and more as perpetrators,” Ms. Singer said in an interview.
“There
is concrete evidence that children are being recruited by all parties
and used in all roles,” she said, including as combatants, as messengers
and being stationed at checkpoints.
Unicef’s
report was published a week after the Islamic State released a video
appearing to show the execution of a prisoner by a boy, in military
fatigues, reported to have been identified later as a French citizen.
In
Raqqa, its headquarters, the Islamic State has reopened schools
teaching extremist ideologies, Ms. Singer said, noting the propaganda
videos distributed by the Islamic State showing children being taught to
throw bombs and to place them under vehicles.
Photo
A Kurdish woman and child at a refugee camp near the besieged town of Kobani last year.Credit
Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“It
is scary, this buildup of the killing machine,” Ms. Singer said.
“Children are being indoctrinated in a very systematic way.”
Despite
the conflict, Unicef and local partners had been able to get polio
vaccines to 2.9 million children and to contain a 2014 outbreak of the
disease, Ms. Singer said. An estimated 840,000 doses of measles vaccine
were also delivered, she said.
With the help of local partners, vaccination had even continued in some Islamic State-controlled areas of Syria.
With
supplies of chlorine from international aid agencies, Syrian engineers
had been able to keep up the supply of safe water to 16 million people
in both government- and opposition-controlled areas.
But
the United Nations estimated that 4.8 million people, including two
million children, were trapped in areas that could not be reached
regularly by aid agencies, and delivering assistance across conflict
lines remained hazardous, Ms. Singer said.
Although
some medicines were allowed through government checkpoints to areas
controlled by the opposition, security forces routinely unloaded
surgical supplies from aid convoys.
In
a move that promised easier access for humanitarian assistance to the
devastated city of 300,000 people, the government announced the
suspension of aerial bombing of the northern city of Aleppo last month.
Since then, however, the government has expelled four crucial United
Nations aid agency staff members, citing contacts with the opposition,
setting back efforts to increase aid and adding to the difficulties of
negotiating cross-line access for aid.
At
the same time, all aspects of humanitarian aid and protection faced
critical shortfalls in funding, Ms. Singer said. “We are urging
longer-term investment by donors so that children can survive and start
to build the next phase of their lives.”
Unicef
had sought about $815 million for its operations in Syria and
neighboring countries in 2015, but as of early March, it had received
little more than one-tenth of that amount.
“We can’t give up on the people of Syria,” Ms. Singer said.
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