(BBC) – In the breakfast room of Baghdad’s grandest hotel, among the businessmen and official delegations, they look so out of place – four pale-faced children, aged between about three and six. They’re wolfing down their bowls of cereal with determination, but in silence. You can tell they’re not on a family holiday. There are […]
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(The Guardian) – Child deaths are on the rise in Syria’s war, according to estimates that show one in four civilians killed in 2016 was under the age of 18. The authors of a study published in the Lancet Global Health said aerial bombing in urban areas had “a disproportionate lethal impact on civilians, particularly children”. […]
(Al-Monitor) – The original impetus behind Insan, an initiative launched in 2013, was to provide psychological treatment to Syrian children in Egypt suffering from the trauma of the civil war in their home country. In November, the team of Syrian university students currently involved in the program announced that it would now be open to other children who have sought refuge in Egypt, including from Sudan and Yemen. Link
(Al Jazeera) – US President Donald Trump’s administration said it was withdrawing the US from an international pact aimed at improving global migration and refugee issues, prompting criticism from the United Nations. The US has been a part of the non-binding New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants since it was unanimously adopted by the UN […]
(HRW) – “How old are you?” the interviewer asks. “Thirteen,” replies the boy, in uniform. “Thirteen years – thirteen years old!” the interviewer repeats, proudly, as the camera pans upward to the grinning, bearded faces of uniformed men, apparently Iranian soldiers, who pat their young recruit on the back. On November 25, a video with the logo of […]
(BBC) – The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria says 500 people with urgent medical needs must be evacuated from a besieged rebel-held area near Damascus. Jan Egeland said there had been nine deaths so far among those waiting for permission to leave the Eastern Ghouta. Dozens of civilians are also reported to have been killed in […]
(IOM) – Metal towers of lights reached out of the sea and flames belched into the midnight sky as the Aquarius reached Bouri Field, the largest oilfield in the Mediterranean, about 65 nautical miles north of Libya. I had been sitting cross-legged on deck of this rescue ship, listening to a group of West African […]
(UNICEF) – Violence, lack of humanitarian access and sky-rocketing food prices have worsened malnutrition among young children in besieged East Ghouta. Nearly 400,000 people – half of them are estimated to be children – remain trapped in the area which has been under siege since mid-2013. Link
(UNOCHA) – As delivered. Mr. President, Last week we released the United Nations 2018 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Syria. It lays out the continued plight of the Syrian people after almost seven years of conflict. 13.1 million people urgently need humanitarian assistance and protection. Of them, some 5.6 million people are in acute need. Syria remains the world’s […]
(NBC) – More than 15,200 children arrived alone in Europe this year after completing dangerous migrant journeys, according to the United Nations. A total of almost 150,000 people entered Europe seeking new lives during the first nine months of 2017, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a quarterly update titled “Desperate Journeys.” That’s under half […]
