Syria’s six-year war has taken a terrible toll on the country’s children, especially those who have been separated from their families, a senior UNICEF official told Reuters on Wednesday (March 15).
Furthermore, as well as the large number of direct casualties from warfare, many more children have died or suffered from indirect consequences of the crisis including a collapse in healthcare, according to UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, who just spent three days visiting Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.
UNICEF, the United Nation’s agency focusing on children, issued a report on Monday on the war in Syria, which began after protests six years ago against President Bashar al-Assad.
In its report, UNICEF said it had documented the deaths of 652 children last year, 20 percent more than in 2015. But Cappelaere said that represented only a small proportion of the real number of deaths.
(Reuters)
