2024 marks one of the worst years for children in conflict zones: UNICEF

NEW YORK

The toll of armed conflicts on children worldwide reached unprecedented and potentially record-breaking levels in 2024, the United Nation's children agency has said.

“By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in UNICEF’s history—both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” the agency said in a report released on Dec. 28.

“A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished or forced from their home—too often repeatedly—compared to a child living in places of peace.”

“This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars,” the agency head expressed.

More than 473 million children —over one in six globally— now live in conflict-affected regions, as the world faces its highest number of conflicts since World War II, the report noted.

By the close of 2023, 47.2 million children were displaced by conflict and violence, with trends in 2024 suggesting further displacement driven by escalating conflicts in Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar the State of Palestine and Sudan.

The United Nations documented a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children —the highest figure recorded since Security Council-mandated monitoring began.

Although children make up 30 percent of the global population, they represent approximately 40 percent of refugees and 49 percent of internally displaced persons worldwide.

“Children in war zones face a daily struggle for survival that deprives them of a childhood,” the agency stated.

Malnutrition among children in conflict zones has risen to alarming levels, as conflict and armed violence continue to be the primary drivers of hunger in numerous hotspots, disrupting food systems, displacing populations and obstructing humanitarian access.

In 2024, more than half 1 million people in five conflict-affected countries are estimated to be living in IPC Phase 5 conditions, the most extreme food insecurity situations.

The report came after the commissioner-general of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that children in Gaza are freezing to death due to the cold weather and a severe lack of shelter.

A 3-week old baby was the third to die from the cold in Gaza's tent camps in recent days, doctors said, deaths that underscore the squalid conditions, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli offensives.