Thousands Of Children Suffering Due To Mideast War: UN

NEW YORK, NY -More than 2,100 children have been killed or injured since the military escalation in the Middle East, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said.

“Twenty-three days into the escalating conflict in the Middle East, children across the region are paying a devastating price. A further descent into a wider or protracted conflict would be catastrophic for millions more,” Chaiban told reporters on March 23 at the UN headquarters in New York.

The casualties include 206 children killed in Iran, 118 in Lebanon, four in Israel and one in Kuwait, he said.

“That is an average of approximately 87 children either killed or injured every day since the beginning of the war,” Chaiban said.

Alongside the dead and wounded, there has been rapid displacement across several countries, driven by relentless bombardment and evacuation orders that have emptied communities, he said.

In Iran, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that up to 3.2 million people have been displaced, including up to 864,000 children, while in Lebanon, more than 1 million people are displaced, including an estimated 370,000 children, he said.

According to Chaiban, across the Middle East, around 44.8 million children were already living in conflict-affected settings before the escalation.

In Lebanon, more than 350 public schools were being used as shelters, disrupting the education of around 100,000 students. Public services were under severe pressure, with water systems damaged and health workers killed as they tried to rescue populations, he said. (IANS)