By Mustafa Caglayan
NEW YORK
The United Nations on Monday declared 2014 as a year of devastation for millions of children caught up in violent conflicts across the world.
"The year 2014 has been one of horror, fear and despair for millions of children, as worsening conflicts across the world saw them exposed to extreme violence and its consequences, forcibly recruited and deliberately targeted by warring groups," UN children agency UNICEF said in a press statement.
An estimated 230 million children live in areas affected by armed conflicts, with as many as 15 million directly caught up in fighting in Palestine, Syria, Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan and Ukraine, according to the agency.
“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," UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said. "Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.”
Hundreds of children have been kidnapped in 2014 from their schools or on their way to school, and tens of thousands have been recruited or used by armed forces and groups, read the statement.
In Gaza, 538 children were killed, more than 3,370 were injured, 1,500 were orphaned and 54,000 left homeless as a result of seven weeks of Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave in July and August.
Six UN schools that were providing shelter to thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians were reportedly targeted by Israeli forces during the 51-day military offensive that began July 7.
In Syria, with as many as 7.3 million children caught up in their country’s ongoing civil war, the UN verified at least 35 attacks on schools in the first nine months of the year, which killed 105 children and injured nearly 300 others. In neighboring Iraq, at least 700 children are believed to have been maimed, killed or even executed this year.
"In both countries, children have been victims of, witnesses to and even perpetrators of increasingly brutal and extreme violence," the statement said.
Around 2.3 million children are affected by tit-for-tat sectarian violence between Christian anti-Balaka militiamen and Muslim seleka fighters in the Central African Republic.
The UN says 432 children have been killed and maimed since the beginning of 2014 – three times more than the figures recorded in the previous year. Up to 10,000 children are believed to have been recruited by armed groups in the mineral-rich country.
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