NEW YORK (dpa)
More children than ever before live in conflict zones or have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to fighting, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.
About 473 million children are estimated to live in conflict areas - more than one in six children worldwide, the agency said in a report released on Saturday.
The proportion of children living in areas of conflict has doubled - from around 10% in the 1990s to almost 19% today, UNICEF said. They are killed and injured, have to drop out of school, lack vital vaccinations or suffer from severe malnutrition.
"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," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement.
"A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished, or forced from their home ... This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world's unchecked wars."
According to UNICEF, 47.2 million children were displaced due to conflict and violence by the end of 2023. The trends for 2024 indicate a further increase in displacement because various conflicts have intensified, including in Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Palestinian territories and areas in Africa.