Children in conflict zones around the world have come under attack
at a shocking scale throughout the year, says
the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), reports ITRealms.
UNICEF made this assertion to ITRealms through
its Director of Emergency Programmes, Manuel Fontaine, noting that even parties
to conflicts blatantly disregarded international laws designed to protect the
most vulnerable.
“Children are being targeted and exposed to attacks and brutal
violence in their homes, schools and playgrounds. As these attacks continue
year after year, we cannot become numb. Such brutality cannot be the new
normal,” Fontaine said.
ITRealms gathered that in conflicts around the world, children have
become frontline targets, used as human shields, killed, maimed and recruited
to fight. Rape, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement have become standard
tactics in conflicts from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to Nigeria, South Sudan and
Myanmar.
In some contexts, he said, children abducted by
extremist groups experience abuse yet again upon release when they are detained
by security forces.
“Millions more children are paying an indirect
price for these conflicts, suffering from malnutrition, disease and trauma as
basic services – including access to food, water, sanitation and health – are
denied, damaged or destroyed in the fighting,” Fontaine submitted.
Uj. N. Dominic/GEE
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