Libya: thousands of children
at risk amidst ongoing conflict
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| Displaced children play in Tripoli |
As international powers prepare to meet in Berlin on Sunday
to discuss the Libyan crisis, UNICEF publishes details concerning the number of
children at risk amidst the violence and chaos of the ongoing conflict.
By Vatican News
“Today, children in Libya are in a dire and untenable
situation that the rest of the world should find unacceptable”.
These are the opening words of a statement by UNICEF
Director General, Henrietta Fore. They describe the sense of urgency and
frustration experienced by all those working in Libya to protect children, “who
continue to suffer grievously amidst the violence and chaos unleashed by the
country’s longstanding civil war”.
Children recruited to fight
According to the statement, “Indiscriminate attacks in
populated areas have caused hundreds of deaths, and UNICEF has received reports
of children being maimed or killed. Children are also being recruited to the
fighting”, continues the statement, while “more than 150,000 people, 90,000 of
whom are children, have been forced to flee their homes”.
Attacks on civilians
UNICEF and its partners on the ground are assisting children
and their families to access healthcare and nutrition, protection, education,
water and sanitation. The statement adds, however, that attacks against the civilian
population, infrastructures, and healthcare personnel, are undermining
humanitarian efforts.
Refugee and migrant children
“The 60,000 refugee and migrant children currently in urban
areas are also terribly vulnerable, especially the 15,000 who are unaccompanied
and those being held in detention centers”. According to the statement, “These
children already had limited access to protection and essential services, so
the intensifying conflict has only amplified the risks they face”.
Berlin peace summit
Ahead of the peace summit planned for this Sunday in Berlin,
UNICEF is urgently calling on all parties in the conflict to “end the
recruitment and use of children, cease attacks against civilian
infrastructures, and allow for the safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to
children and people in need”.
The statement by the UNICEF Director General calls on all
parties, and those who have influence over them, “to reach a comprehensive and
durable peace agreement for the sake of each and every child in Libya”.
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