According to the United Nations Children’s Agency, an estimated 473 million children, more than one in six children around the world, live in conflict zones.
UNICEF’s statement was released on Saturday as conflicts continue across the world, including in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine.
Israel’s devastating war against Gaza in particular has reportedly left at least 17,492 children dead during the nearly 15-month conflict that has reduced much of the enclave to rubble.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: “By almost every measure, 2024 will be the highest year in UNICEF’s history for children in conflict, both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives. “It’s been a terrible year on both counts.”
Children who grow up in conflict zones are far more likely to miss school, be malnourished, or be forced to leave their homes than children living in non-conflict areas, Russell said. That’s what it means.
“This cannot be the new normal. We cannot allow generations of children to become collateral damage in the world’s unchecked wars,” the director said.
The proportion of children living in conflict areas has doubled from around 10 per cent in the 1990s to almost 19 per cent today, UNICEF said.
According to the report, 47.2 million children will have been displaced by conflict and violence by the end of 2023.
Trends for 2024 indicate further increases in displacement as various conflicts intensify, including in Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Palestinian Territories, and Sudan.
Additionally, the latest available data shows that since 2023, the UN has recorded 32,990 serious violations against 22,557 children, the most since UN Security Council-mandated monitoring began. This is the highest figure since then, UNICEF said.
The number of serious violations is on the rise overall and is likely to rise further this year as “thousands of children have been killed or injured in Gaza and Ukraine,” officials said. .
Sexual violence against children is soaring, children’s education is being affected, child malnutrition rates are rising and armed conflict is taking a toll on children’s mental health, UNICEF also reported.
“The world is failing these children. In 2025, we must turn the tide and do more to save and improve children’s lives,” Russell said. Ta.
Children in Gaza are ‘cold, sick and traumatized’
Israeli forces have killed more women and children in the Gaza Strip in the past year than in any recent conflict, Oxfam reported in September. The ongoing war is a “nightmare” for children, UNICEF communications specialist Rosalia Bohlen said in closing. at the week’s media briefing.
“Children in Gaza are cold, sick and traumatized,” Boren said last Friday.
Some 96 percent of women and children in the Gaza Strip are unable to meet their basic nutritional needs, she said, lamenting the lack of aid reaching children in the Strip.
“Gaza must be one of the most heartbreaking places on earth for humanitarians, where every small effort to save a child’s life is undone by the sheer destruction,” Boren said.
“For more than 14 months, children have been on the brink of this nightmare.”
Bolen said many children in the besieged enclave do not have warm clothing, have to forage for food in garbage and are plagued by disease.
She called for using her political capital and diplomatic influence to encourage the evacuation of injured children and their parents to leave Gaza and receive medical care in places like East Jerusalem.
“This war should concern us all. The children of Gaza cannot wait,” she pressed.
