One-fifth of world's children live amid armed conflicts

While I wish everyone a happy new year, especially children, I am constrained to write about the dire plight of children living in areas of armed conflict, specifically in Palestine's now devastated Gaza Strip.

- Satur C. Ocampo

There are other wars going on, in places that we hardly hear about: the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Haiti, Yemen. And of course, Ukraine.

More than 473 million young people, nearly one-fifth of all children in the world, suffer from the worst level of violence since World War II (1939-1945). This, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), as lucidly reported by The Guardian.

The percentage of children living in war zones, Unicef said, has doubled from about 10 percent in the 1990s to almost 19 percent today. This should not become the "new normal," it warned. Yet, with more conflicts raging around the world than at any time since 1945, children increasingly become the major victims.

In 2023, Unicef verified a record 32,990 "grave violations" against 22,557 children. The number of those forcibly displaced reached 47.2 million. These are the highest figures since 20 years ago, when the UN Security Council mandated monitoring of the impact of wars on the world's children.

Take, for instance, Israel's horrible war on Gaza, ongoing for nearly 15 months. It stemmed from the Palestinian armed group Hamas' attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 2,500 mostly Israeli civilians. Instantly, Israel's armed forces retaliated, pursuing Hamas combatants in Gaza, where the latter held sway. The death toll, verified by the UN, was placed at 45,000-plus Palestinians. Of these, 44 percent were children.

On New Year's Day, Israeli air strikes killed at least 12 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children.