Unless the needs and rights of the more than eight million Syrian children are addressed, an entire generation will be lost, along with decades of development progress, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns in a new report that calls on the worldwide community to protect the youngest civilians amidst “a children’s crisis”.
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We are one of the few agencies working both in Syria and its neighbouring countries to keep children safe.
“Five years into the war, millions of children have grown up too fast and way ahead of their time”, Salama said.
“For the 3.7 million Syrian children born since the conflict began, five years is literally a lifetime”.
Michael Sheen, actor and Unicef UK ambassador, has just returned from Jordan and Lebanon where he met with children who have been affected by the ongoing conflict.
“We should condemn the events, not pathologise people saying that they are lost”, he said.
Released on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Syrian conflict, the report notes that some 3.7 million Syrian children are five years of age or older.
The “No Place for Children” report highlights that nearly seven million children live in poverty inside of Syria today and that a whole generation is at risk as there is no end to the conflict in sight.
According to the report “No Place for Children”, Unicef verified some 1,500 cases of serious violations against children in 2015: over 60% regard instances of killing and mutilation as a effect of explosives used in populated areas, more than a third of these children were killed while they were at school, the report denounced. “Parties to this conflict are using children to kill, including as executioners or snipers”.
“As the war continues, children are fighting an adult war, they are continuing to drop out of school, and many are forced into labor, while girls are marrying early”, Salama added.
Beginning a year ago, the warring sides began recruiting younger and younger children, UNICEF said – some as young as seven. More than half of the Unicef-verified cases of children recruited in 2015 were under 15 years old, compared with less than 20 per cent in 2014, according to the report.
Children who grew up exposed to atrocities of World War Two did not end up repeating crimes they had seen as children but moved on to rebuild Europe, Papadopoulos said.
These children – reported Unicef – receive military training and engage in combat at the front or take on unsafe roles. “They still cherish dreams of peace and have the chance to fulfill them”.
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The report also urged the worldwide community to restore children’s dignity and strengthen their psychological wellbeing and turn funding pledges into commitments. The extent of the suffering is illustrated by the figure that some eight million children inside Syria and in neighbouring countries are in need of assistance.
