EDITORIAL: More than ever armed conflicts are affecting children around the world, reaching devastating and likely record levels in 2024, according to a review by UNICEF of the latest available data and prevailing trends. The percentage of children living in conflict zones has doubled — from around 10 percent in the 1990s to almost 19 percent today.
They are getting killed and injured, or displaced from their homes, likely to be critically malnourished, and out of school. “By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in UNICEF’s history — both in terms of the number of children affected, and the level of impact on their lives,” noted the UN agency’s Executive Director Catherine Russell in her comments.
The review report goes on to point out that by the end of 2023, some 47.2 million children had been displaced due to conflict and violence, with the trends in the following year indicating additional displacements due to the intensification of conflicts in Lebanon, the State of Palestine, Haiti, Myanmar, and Sudan.
The nature of these conflicts is different so are the escalatory pressures on people, even as all wars bring about humanitarian disasters. The last three countries have been locked in internal conflicts whereas Lebanon and Palestine faced external aggression.
Israel’s confrontation with Hezbollah has caused massive death and destruction in Lebanon. The latest round of hostilities left at least one child dead per day. And the Jewish state’s genocidal campaign in Gaza so far has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, no less than 17,400 of them children. Countless more are missing, most presumed dead, prompting the UN to declare that the Gaza Strip is graveyard for thousands of children.
A large number of them have been wounded, in many cases losing one or two limbs and suffering from life-long disabilities. Many of those surviving endure mental trauma of loss of loved ones. Fear and despair influence all aspects of children’s lives in the besieged enclave. Clearly, what has made 2024 one of the worst years on record for children in the UN agency’s history are the unspeakable atrocities Israel has relentlessly been committing in Gaza.
Speaking in general terms, UNICEF official said a child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of schools, malnourished, or forced from their home, too often repeatedly (as in Gaza). “This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars,” she averred.
Unfortunately, the US and its European allies, Britain and Germany, in particular — all self-proclaimed defenders of human rights across the world — have made that the ‘new normal’. They have not only done nothing to stop the Gaza genocide but are complicit in it, providing Israel with weapons, financial and diplomatic support to kill as many Palestinian men, women and children as it wants for further expansion of the Zionist colonial project.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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