UNICEF appeals for funding assistance to help 60 million children in crisis by Unicef, agencies 9:37am 10th Jan, 2015   With more than one in 10 of the world’s children living in areas affected by armed conflict, the United Nations children’s agency said Thursday that it is struggling to deal with “a new generation of emergencies.”    Natural disasters, fast-spreading epidemics and conflicts “are stalking children in ways we have never seen before,” Afshan Khan, Unicef’s director of emergency programs, said in a statement accompanying an appeal for financial support.    Among the biggest emerging challenges, Ms. Khan said, is the growing recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. Previously confined to a few countries, it is “becoming the new normal,” Ms. Khan said.    The agency is asking for $3.1 billion, with the goal of helping 62 million children in 71 countries.    Humanitarian agencies are now being asked to address more than sudden natural disasters and a few protracted crises. “What we’re seeing now is countries that were previously middle income are falling into conflict, and with devastating impact on children,” Ms. Khan said in an interview, citing Syria, Ukraine and Nigeria as examples.    The number of conflicts “has increased exponentially,” she said. Humanitarian agencies, which were geared mainly to deal with crises on a country-by-country basis, are increasingly being asked to respond to the wider regional impact of conflicts.    Nearly one-third of Unicef’s 2015 appeal is for Syria, where 5.6 million children have been caught up in the civil war. “An entire generation of children are in danger of understanding violence as a normal way of life,” Ms. Khan.    The agency has helped rehabilitate schools in areas controlled by the government and providing learning materials to areas under the control of opposition armed groups. It has also bolstering support to host communities in the neighboring countries that have received Syrian refugees.    Unicef earmarked half a billion dollars to support efforts to combat Ebola in West Africa in the first half of the year, financing community care centers and addressing the needs of more than 10,000 children who have lost one or more of their parents.    It also sought $32 million for Ukraine, where one-third of the more than five million people displaced by fighting were children, and some $26.5 million for Nigeria, where attacks by Boko Haram have displaced more than a million people in the northeast.    “If you ask what is the big change, it’s that the new normal is a real, systematic violation of children’s rights, with impunity, limited accountability and a limited set of international institutions, norms and standards that can protect those kids,” Ms. Khan said.    Unicef allocated close to one-third of its planned spending to protection and education. “It’s not enough to help children survive,” Ms. Khan said. “We’ve also got to help children be the citizens that can rebuild their countries and restore peace.”    She said: “We are increasingly facing a crisis of protection that cuts across national boundaries that is often driven by armed groups and insurgents. I don’t think we’re anywhere near properly resourced for that.”    Competition for donations is severe. In 2014, Unicef raised little more than half the $2 billion it sought from donors, Ms. Khan noted. “We are really stretched this year to reach our targets,” she said.    http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/ http://www.unicef.org/appeals/    Jan 2015    Millions of children face ‘untold misery’ as powerful winter storm sweeps Middle East    At least seven million internally displaced and refugee children are in desperate need of assistance as bitter winter snows and torrential rains continue to batter the Middle East, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) urged today.    Briefing the press in Geneva this afternoon, UNICEF’s Christophe Boulierac warned that the number of children who need clothes and winter items is increasing exponentially. Six children have already died due to the extreme weather. Temperatures in parts of Syria are currently reaching -11 degrees Celsius.    Living in tents, unfinished buildings and inadequate shelters, more and more children are being exposed to sub-zero temperatures, heavy snow and strong winds. This leaves them vulnerable to respiratory tract infections and other illnesses associated with cold weather.    To respond to the dire needs, UNICEF is delivering warm clothing, blankets, heating supplies, cash and vouchers to 916,000 children in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey of the 1.3 million target children. In Syria, where war nears its fourth year, winter supplies have reached 350,000 children.    The rain and heavy snow have caused havoc and “untold misery” for so many, Mr. Boulierac said. In the Idleb governorate 300 tents were swept away by floods, affecting about 1,000 people. Fires have started in some dwellings because people do not have security lights or have burned plastic to stay warm.    Most families do not have access to fuel or electricity, or simply cannot afford to buy it. In recent weeks for example, the cost of diesel increased by a further third, 16 per cent of gasoline. The price of fuel had increased 350 per cent since the beginning of the crisis.    In Syria, UNICEF and its partners have distributed winter clothing for 350,000 children as well as tents and hygiene kits. The UN agency is also supporting Syria’s Ministry of Education in providing fuel tanks and radiators in 65 schools for 40,000 children and 1,400 teachers.    The prevailing harsh winter and snowstorm has created untold miseries amongst the displaced population. A hospital in the area has reported increased respiratory and infectious diseases in children. And it is reported that five people died in or near Damascus due to the bad weather. Another child died, with his father and another adult in Lebanon while crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border into Lebanon.    In preparation for winter, UNICEF in Lebanon had stored 28,000 winter kits, but is saying now that may be insufficient as the number of vulnerable children has spiked. UNICEF Lebanon’s winter items and vouchers had been provided to 200,000 children in the most exposed areas of the country, including in elevated areas such as Aarsal and it aimed to reach a total of 478,000 children in the coming weeks.    In Jordan, UNICEF is providing them with winter kits and cash assistance to some 100,000 Syrian refugee children and their families. In Turkey, the winter response had reached 62,000 children, including 22,000 children from Kobane aged three to 11 years in Suruc. And in Iraq, winter clothing kits had been distributed to over 200,000 children in over 100 hard-to-reach and high altitude areas.    Despite all these humanitarian operations, major challenges persist, Mr. Boulierac stressed, emphasizing that the number of vulnerable children grows on a daily basis and that they often move around making planning very difficult. He appealed to donors for funding so that UNICEF could continue its work.    http://childrenofsyria.info/winter/ http://www.unhcr.org/54affcf59.html http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home http://www.redforsyria.org/ http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/ http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49934 http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/syria-latest-report-security-council-highlights-continued-atrocities-and-bre    Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five. World Food Programme (WFP)    Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we''ve compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.    Over 870 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That''s about one in nine people on earth.    The vast majority of the world''s hungry people live in developing countries, where 13.5 percent of the population is undernourished.    Asia is the continent with the most hungry people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.    Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.    Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.    One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.    One in four of the world''s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.    If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.    66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.    WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.    http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats http://www.wfp.org/hunger-hot-spots http://globalnutritionreport.org/ http://www.wfp.org/videos/3456 http://www.wfp.org/videos/1003 http://www.unocha.org/where-we-work/emergencies http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/ http://www.unicef.org/media/media_76354.html    December 2014    The year 2014 has been one of horror, fear and despair for millions of children, as worsening conflicts across the world saw them exposed to extreme violence and its consequences, forcibly recruited and deliberately targeted by warring groups, UNICEF said today. Yet many crises no longer capture the world’s attention, warned the children’s agency.    “This has been a devastating year for millions of children,” said Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director. “Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves. Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.”    As many as 15 million children are caught up in violent conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, the State of Palestine, Syria and Ukraine – including those internally displaced or living as refugees. Globally, an estimated 230 million children currently live in countries and areas affected by armed conflicts.    In 2014, hundreds of children have been kidnapped from their schools or on their way to school. Tens of thousands have been recruited or used by armed forces and groups. Attacks on education and health facilities and use of schools for military purposes have increased in many places.    In the Central African Republic, 2.3 million children are affected by the conflict, up to 10,000 children are believed to have been recruited by armed groups over the last year, and more than 430 children have been killed and maimed – three times as many as in 2013.    In Gaza, 54,000 children were left homeless as a result of the 50-day conflict during the summer that also saw 538 children killed, and more than 3,370 injured.    In Syria, with more than 7.3 million children affected by the conflict including 1.7 million child refugees, the United Nations verified at least 35 attacks on schools in the first nine months of the year, which killed 105 children and injured nearly 300 others.    In Iraq, where an estimated 2.7 million children are affected by conflict, at least 700 children are believed to have been maimed, killed or even executed this year.    In both countries, children have been victims of, witnesses to and even perpetrators of increasingly brutal and extreme violence.    In South Sudan, an estimated 235,000 children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Almost 750,000 children have been displaced and more than 320,000 are living as refugees.    According to UN verified data, more than 600 children have been killed and over 200 maimed this year, and around 12,000 children are now being used by armed forces and groups.    The sheer number of crises in 2014 meant that many were quickly forgotten or captured little attention.    Protracted crises in countries like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, continued to claim even more young lives and futures.    This year has also posed significant new threats to children’s health and well-being, most notably the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, which has left thousands of children orphaned and an estimated 5 million out of school.    Despite the tremendous challenges children have faced in 2014, there has been hope for millions of children affected by conflict and crisis.    In the face of access restrictions, insecurity, and funding challenges, humanitarian organizations including UNICEF have worked together to provide life-saving assistance and other critical services like education and emotional support to help children growing up in some of the most dangerous places in the world.    In Central African Republic, a campaign is under way to get 662,000 children back to school as the security situation permits. Nearly 68 million doses of the oral polio vaccine were delivered to countries in the Middle East to stem a polio outbreak in Iraq and Syria.    In South Sudan, more than 70,000 children were treated for severe malnutrition.    In Ebola-hit countries, work continues to combat the virus in local communities through support for community care centres and Ebola treatment Units; through training of health workers and awareness-raising campaigns to reduce the risks of transmission; and through supporting children orphaned by Ebola.    “It is sadly ironic that in this, the 25th anniversary year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child when we have been able to celebrate so much progress for children globally, the rights of so many millions of other children have been so brutally violated,” said Lake.    “Violence and trauma do more than harm individual children – they undermine the strength of societies. The world can and must do more to make 2015 a much better year for every child. For every child who grows up strong, safe, healthy and educated is a child who can go on to contribute to her own, her family’s, her community’s, her nation’s and, indeed, to our common future.”    http://www.unicef.org/media/media_78058.html    World demands an end to use of child soldiers in conflict    From Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as the world’s conflicts become more brutal, intense and widespread, children are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable to recruitment and deployment by armed groups, the United Nations warned today.    In a joint press release marking the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, observed every 12 February since 2002, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict called for “urgent action to end grave violations against children” and appealed to all parties of conflicts to meet their obligations under International Law.    “While Governments of the world have made progress to recognize children have no place in their armies, the recruitment of child soldiers is still a huge problem, especially with armed groups,” said Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.    “Out of 59 parties to conflict identified by the Secretary-General for grave violations against children, 57 are named because they are recruiting and using child soldiers,” she added.    According to the UN, tens of thousands of boys and girls are associated with armed forces and armed groups in conflicts in over 20 countries around the world. In Afghanistan, for instance, children continue to be recruited into national security forces and, in some extreme cases, used as suicide bombers. Meanwhile, in the territories of Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), children as young as 12 are undergoing military training and being used to carry out suicide bombings and executions as well.    At the same time, a number of conflicts in Africa have witnessed a rise in the use of children for military purposes. In the Central African Republic, where sectarian violence continues to ripple across the country, boys and girls as young as eight years old have been recruited and used by all parties to the conflict.    The DRC has witnessed a similar phenomenon in child soldier recruitment with boys being dispatched into conflict while girls are reportedly commissioned as sex slaves. In South Sudan, some child soldiers have been fighting for up to four years and many have never attended school. In the last year alone, 12,000 children, mostly boys, have been recruited and used as soldiers by armed forces and groups in South Sudan as a whole.    “The release of all children from armed groups must take place without delay. We cannot wait for peace to help children caught in the midst of war,” said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Yoka Brandt.    “Investing in ways to keep children away from the frontlines, including through education and economic support, is absolutely critical to their future and the future of their societies.”    http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/ http://www.unicef.org/media/media_pr_childsoldiers.html http://www.genevacall.org/international-day-use-child-soldiers/ http://www.child-soldiers.org/ http://www.redhandday.org/index.php http://www.warchild.org/ Visit the related web page
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item