Being a child in Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia means living in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for kids, Save the Children has reported. Attacks on children in schools and hospitals are becoming normal.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Glinski
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According to a report published Thursday by global charity Save the Children, more than 357 million children live in war and conflict zones, an increase of roughly 75 percent from the early 1990s.
Around half of those affected, some 165 million children, live in "high-intensity" conflicts. Youngsters in the Middle East are most likely to live in an area classed as a war-zone, with two in five children living within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of a "conflict event." Africa was ranked as second-most dangerous region.
With regard to individual countries, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia topped the list of the most dangerous countries for children. Other hotspots include Myanmar, Bangladesh, Iraq and Yemen.
There has been a marked increase in the killing and maiming of children. Since 2010, the number of UN-verified cases of has gone up by almost 300 percent.
Increased urbanization key factor
The report blames several factors for the overall increase. It says conflicts today tend to be protracted and are often fought in densely populated areas, with "attacks on what should, by any law or civilized standard, be safe places for children — such as schools and hospitals — also becoming a new normal in conflicts," said Save the Children CEO Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Save the Children also says that "increasingly brutal tactics are being utilized" abusing children as suicide bombers and targeting kids in schools and hospitals as well as using so-called indiscriminate weapons like barrel bombs and cluster munitions.
Apart from the conflicts themselves, children are affected by increasing displacement, with more than 65 million people around the world without a permanent home.
With several countries in the Middle East in the grip of conflicts, children there are not only in danger but often miss out on schooling. Efforts are made to keep lessons going, even under dire conditions.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Lessons continue despite destruction
These girls are attending a class at their school in the Yemeni port city of Hedeidah despite the fact that a wall has been almost completely taken out by a Saudi-led air strike. The country has been enmeshed in a bloody civil war for three years now, and the conflict shows no sign of ending. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2015.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Learning in a barn
Syria is another country in the Middle East wracked by civil conflict, with millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the displaced children are seen here being taught in a barn for lack of school buildings in the rebel-held area of Daraa in southern Syria. Chairs are also in short supply, meaning several of the children have been forced to sit on stones instead.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Failed deal
Although Iran and Russia, which both back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, made a deal with rebel backer Turkey to make Eastern Ghouta a "de-escalation zone" from July, the agreement has been repeatedly violated. This school in the Eastern Ghouta village of Hamouria did not escape damage, and humanitarian workers have warned of a dire situation inside the enclave.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Almohibany
Makeshift school
Syrian children are seen here attending classes in improvised conditions in a rebel-held area of the southern city of Daraa. Although many countries are determined that children in Syria should not become a "lost generation" for lack of schooling, the war is making it difficult and sometimes impossible for lessons to continue.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Return to normality amid signs of war
This wall at a school in the Syrian village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, is full of bullet holes from the war. The extremist group "Islamic State" closed the school and many others in northern Syria when it took over the region in 2014. Now it has been driven out, children can go back to learning normal subjects instead of the extremist propaganda taught by the hardline Islamists.
Image: Reuters/Z. Bensemra
Games amid ruins
"Where do the children play?" British singer Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name of Cat Stevens, once asked in a song. These children have found their playground in this damaged school in al-Saflaniyeh in eastern Aleppo province. But one can only wish they had nicer, and safer, surroundings for their games.
