Nearly one in five children in the world live in or near a conflict zone, and explosions, for example, affect children worse than adults. It is part of the content of Save the Children’s new report today on children in war.
One of the victims is 11-year-old Danil from Nagorno-Karabakh.
– Mom woke us up and we hid in the basement. A drone flew and bombed everything. The worst was when a pressure wave came over us.
That’s what Danil said for Ekot’s Johanna Melén who met him in a refugee center in Armenia a few weeks ago.
The report “Killed and mutilated” is International Save the Children’s second annual review of children affected by armed conflict and a special focus is on how explosions tear apart children’s bodies and psyches.
Explosive weapons were behind almost half of all deaths and mutilations of children in conflicts last year, Save the Children states.
The organization describes how children’s large heads, thin skin, short arms and legs and low height make them suffer worse than adults from pressure waves, splinters, being thrown away and burns.
Alan Frisk is the Swedish Red Cross’ humanitarian director with 20 years of experience in conflicts.
– There are more children, around 420 million children, living in conflict zones today, and it is increasingly difficult to reach them with humanitarian aid. What we want to see is, of course, a reduction in this violence perpetrated against children. It is considered by the UN as gross violations of children’s rights. At the same time, children need help, where we see difficulties in reaching out with, for example, medical care when children are affected by explosions.
Have you felt that yourself?
– I have felt it myself. And the restrictions imposed on humanitarian workers are becoming increasingly harsh and cumbersome for us.
Save the children targets in the report, special criticism of the UN Secretary-General for diluting the annual list of perpetrators of serious crimes against children for political reasons.
Among other things, Save the Children now hopes that many countries will sign a forthcoming declaration next year against the use of weapons with a large explosive effect in densely populated areas.
Source: ICELAND NEWS