The UNICEF lamented 2014 as being an extremely harsh year for millions of children who were absorbed into violent clashes and wars around the world.
The international organization estimated children caught up in violent conflicts in 2014 at 15 million in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Palestine, Syria and Ukraine. It added around 230 million children lived under a state of war. According to the statement, the world has forgotten about many of these conflicts.
“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,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.
According to the press release issued by the UNICEF on Monday, hundreds of schoool children have been abducted and tens of thousands have been used by armed groups.
“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,” read the statement.
The UNICEF reported that 54,000 children were displaced in Gaza as a result of the recent war where 538 children were killed and more than 3,370 injured.
It added Syrian childdren refugees amounted to 1.7 million and more than 7.3 million have been afflicted by the sate of war.
In South Sudan, around 750,000 children became homeless and more than 320,000 others resorted to refugee camps, according to UN estimates.
Children continued to die in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, said the UNICEF statement.
The Ebola has also affected thousands of children in African countries.
“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,” the statement quoted Lake as saying.
