“When we look at the situation in the Central
Sahel, we cannot help but be struck by the scale of violence children are
facing. They are being killed, mutilated and sexually abused, and hundreds of
thousands of them have had traumatic experiences”, said Ms Marie-Pierre
Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
Hundreds of children in the Sahel were killed, maimed or
forcibly separated from their parents last year, the United Nations said
Tuesday, as a jihadist conflict rages across the region.
 |
| Five Million Children Will Need Aid This Year |
In Mali alone, 277
children were killed or maimed during the first nine months of 2019, the UN
children's agency UNICEF said in a
report, more than double the number in the year before.
Despite support from French and UN troops, Mali has been
struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency that erupted in the north in 2012
and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives.
The conflict has since spread to the centre of the West African
country, as well as neighbouring Sahel states
Burkina Faso and Niger, inflaming ethnic tensions along the way.
The whole Sahel region has seen a "significant increase of
violence against children who are caught in the cross- fire," according to
the report, which added that hundreds had been maimed or forcibly separated
from their families.
Mali is the only country for which there are hard figures on the
number of child war victims, a UNICEF spokeswoman said.
But nonetheless she said that children in Burkina Faso and Niger
have also been murdered, sexually abused, kidnapped, or pressed into armed
groups.
The spiralling conflict had also forced about 1.2 million to
flee their homes as of November -- a two-fold increase on 2018 -- of whom more
than half are children.
Some 4.9 million children need humanitarian aid, the report
added.
'Traumatising experiences'
"We cannot help but be struck by the scale of violence
children are facing," said UNICEF's regional director for West and Central
Africa Marie-Pierre Poirier, in a statement.
"Hundreds of thousands of them have lived through
traumatising experiences."
But the impact of the conflict goes beyond violence.
Access to basic services such as food, water, medicine and
education have also been "seriously compromised," the report said.
This year, the UN estimates that some 709,000 children under
five will suffer from acute malnutrition across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger,
and some 4.8 million people could suffer from food insecurity.
With increasing militant attacks on schools, teachers and
pupils, education has also taken a dire turn. Between April 2017 and December 2019, school closures increased
six-fold in the central Sahel region, the report said.
 |
| Hundreds of Children Sexually Abused, Killed or Maimed |
And more than eight million children between the ages of six and
14 -- about 55 percent of the children who fall within that bracket -- are not
in school.
UNICEF called on militaries and militant groups to respect
"humanitarian space," arguing that insecurity has made aid work more
difficult and dangerous.
The agency is also appealing for $208 million. The report said
that 59 percent of its humanitarian projects for children in Mali, Burkina Faso
and Niger are underfunded.
(AFP)
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