THE WORLD HAS FAILED A LOST GENERATION OF CHILDREN
By Vincent Lyn
Today, conflicts are more frequent. More violent. And longer lasting. And children pay the highest price. Their lives are a waking nightmare. This cannot be accepted as the “new normal.”
Children living in countries at war have come under direct attack, been killed, maimed or recruited to fight, and used as human shields. And world leaders are still failing to hold perpetrators to account for their actions. For the thousands of children killed or maimed in 2020 and conflicts this year, the world’s failure is clear. Yet we are also failing children when their homes, their schools and hospitals, and the other services that provide them with the basics of life are denied or attacked.
2020, the Syrian crisis entered its tenth year and for millions of children the only reality they have known. Global records continue to be broken year on year including rates of forced displacement recorded at 80 million people by UNHCR including more than 30 million children driven from their homes across borders or within their own countries fleeing conflict. Between December 2019 and March 2020 alone, close to 1 million people including an estimated 600,000 children were forced to flee the military advancement of the Government of Syria in the North West of the country where millions are already dependent on humanitarian assistance.
415 million children worldwide are right now living in war zones and areas of conflict? That’s almost 18% — or 1 in 6 — of all the world’s children. The number of conflicts around the world has more than doubled in the last twenty-five years. Affected children live in constant fear, experiencing grave violations of their rights, their childhoods stolen. And countless children have grown up knowing nothing but war and conflict.
Here I’m highlighting 10 countries where conflict and food insecurity have created a need for humanity’s urgent attention.
- SYRIA
A decade of conflict has dragged millions of Syrian families into poverty, forced children to work just to survive, and drove hundreds of thousands of them out of school, making education a fantasy. More than 4.6 million children across the country are food-insecure. Families can simply not afford to put food on the table. At least one in eight children, or 500,000, currently suffer from stunting or chronic malnutrition. As the COVID-19 outbreak in Syria continues to spiral out of control, the country is struggling with a chronic shortage of hospital beds, testing, water, and oxygen. Imagine what it is like for displaced families in an overcrowded camp with no access to treatment or protection, who do not know whether to escape from ongoing hostilities or find protection from a deadly pandemic.
2. IRAQ
Decades of conflict and widespread violence have plagued Iraq, which is one of the five worst conflict-affected countries to be a child. An unprecedented 3 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes due to violence, about half of whom are children. In late 2020, the sudden closure of several formal camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Iraq forced thousands of people to live in abandoned areas among rubble and unexploded bombs.
3. SOUTH SUDAN
South Sudan has one of the highest child immortality rates in the world with more than 90 children out of 1,000 dying before they reach the age of five. Now, a dramatic increase in food insecurity has pushed one million children in South Sudan to the brink of starvation with no signs of slowing. Recent severe flooding, inter-communal violence, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and general economic decline have had a devastating impact on the region. The loss of crops, livestock, homes, and access to hospitals has pushed 6.5 million people into a severe food crisis.
4. ETHIOPIA
Today, the children of Ethiopia are facing unprecedented challenges. The region had been hit hard by desert locust, heavy flooding and other climate-related crises.Recent conflict in Tigray has left over 6,000 people displaced. Children and families have been forced to seek shelter in overcrowded schools or makeshift camps. Many vulnerable have not eaten for days and cannot access vital health services. There were already 600,000 people in Tigray facing food insecurity, drought, and the worst desert locust infestation in 25 years, which diminished food production and increased incidence of malnutrition. The conflict has made things much worse.
5. NIGERIA
Conflict in Nigeria’s northeast is escalating. The end of 2020 was marked by a horrific attack on a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria. Sadly, the recruitment of children by armed groups in the Sahel region has been on the rise. With health and education systems already in crisis, children are fighting to survive. (The Sahel part of Africa includes from west to east parts of northern Senegal , southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger the extreme north of Nigeria, the extreme north of Cameroon and Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea, and the extreme north of Ethiopia.
6. AFGHANISTAN
War-torn Afghanistan is one of the worst places in the world to be a child. The country’s economy and infrastructure are in ruins due to ongoing conflict. With countless homes destroyed and thousands of children forced to take shelter in camps, the risk of hunger, disease, including COVID-19, and even freezing to death are daily realities. Afghanistan remains largely forgotten in the shadow of other global emergencies after more than 18 years of conflict, tens of thousands of civilian deaths and multiple failed peace efforts. This is a country where all children who were born and raised have known nothing but war, where they are scared to go to outside and where they risk abuse and exploitation.
7. VENEZUELA
Venezuela remains one of the most dangerous countries for children. Hyperinflation, unemployment, food and medical supply shortages, and the resulting malnutrition crisis has increased the number of people leaving in desperation. Displacement from Venezuela is among the highest in the world second only to Syria. Children fleeing are experiencing a harrowing journey — sometimes all alone — while suffering from malnutrition, disease and chronic stress.
8. YEMEN
After more than five years since the escalation of hostilities, Yemen remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The U.N estimates that 16.2 million people in the country will face high levels of acute food shortages early this year. This includes more than 7 million children, with nearly 21,000 children at risk of falling into famine. For more than five years, children in Yemen have died because of conflict, disease and extreme hunger. Malnourished babies are getting the worst possible start to life, and fewer and fewer people can afford a basic meal.
9. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
The turbulent Democratic Republic of Congo has endured over two decades of conflict and political instability, creating one of the world’s largest and most complex humanitarian crises. DRC has one of the world’s poorest health systems made worse by the country’s battle with Ebola, cholera, COVID-19 and other life-threatening diseases.Today, the country has nearly 5 million internally displaced people— more than any other African country— who have fled violence, ethnic tension and conflict over land. More than 21 million people across the DRC are now facing hunger, including nearly four million children under the age of five.
10. CENTRAL SAHEL AFRICA
Three deadly attacks in the first week of 2021 mark the danger for children in the Sahel region, which encompasses the border areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger. Ongoing armed violence and insecurity have forced 1.4 million people across the region to flee their homes in less than two years. The growing food and nutrition insecurity has led to high levels of malnutrition, and poor access to clean water and sanitation. As a result, nearly 5 million children are in need of humanitarian aid. Children living in the Sahel region who are impacted by the armed conflict are in dire need of protection and measures must be taken to ensure their safety, their access to education, and other basic needs like food, clean water and shelter.
In my journeys around the globe witnessing war, genocide and the harrowing suffering, thousands of children as front-line targets, used as human shields and recruited to fight on “a shocking scale. Have we as a society become so immune to normalizing the brutality, a sentiment echoed by the United Nations in reports year after year. The plight of children caught up in war, as well as those suffering from the fall out of these conflicts have been forgotten. Why should children suffer at the hands of adults? We all have blood on our hands. We as a global world have failed this generation of children.
Vincent Lyn
CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children
Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization
Economic & Social Council at United Nations
Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency
Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts