UNICEF: Five Million Iraqi Children Need Immediate Assistance

The United Nations Children’s Fund, describing the critical conditions of children in Iraq, announced that more than one thousand Iraqi children have been killed since 2014 and the escalation of violence in the country.

The UNICEF report, released Thursday, July 5, warns that Iraqi children have fallen into an endless cycle of violence and increasing poverty, with five million children in the country currently needing immediate assistance.

The report states that over the past three years, 1,075 Iraqi children have been killed, with 152 of those deaths occurring in the past six months. The violence during this period has also caused more than 4,650 Iraqi children to be separated from their families.

Part of the UNICEF report addresses the education conditions of Iraqi children, stating that approximately 1.2 million children have abandoned school, and more than three million others attend school irregularly.

The report is accompanied by statements from Peter Hawkins, UNICEF’s representative in Iraq, who has called the Iraq war one of the “most brutal” wars in modern history.

Mr. Hawkins, referring to the violence in areas west of Mosul that remain under the control of ISIS militants, has described the dire conditions of children in those areas who have been taken hostage.

According to him, children are deliberately targeted and killed to punish families who intend to flee the violence, such that in less than two months, only in western Mosul, 23 children were killed and 123 others were wounded.

ISIS militants, following attacks by Iraqi army forces with U.S. support, have lost control of many cities and villages they had occupied. They are on the verge of complete defeat in the city of Mosul, a city in northern Iraq that ISIS had declared as the center of its rule.

Source: Radio Farda