Six African nations on child war zone list

JUBA: Six African nations are among the 10 worst in the world to be a child in a war zone, a new report says.

The Save the Children report looks at factors including attacks on schools, child soldier recruitment, sexual violations, killings and lack of humanitarian access and is based on analysis by the Norway-based Peace Research Institute, Oslo.

Syria tops the list followed by Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Almost 360 million children live in affected areas, the report says.

“Crimes involving children are not lesser crimes and need to be pursued with the same vigour that we expect when war crimes are committed,” said Tirana Hassan, crisis response director with Amnesty International. “Concern and outrage are not enough.”

The new report comes just ahead of the Munich Security Conference, which brings together global leaders to discuss security policy.

Children living in conflict-torn countries like South Sudan said they’re traumatised.

“When you expose children to bad things like killing and death it’s very bad for the child,” one former child soldier named Roda told The Associated Press in the town of Yambio last week.

Three years ago, at age 14, she was abducted from school and forced to fight for the opposition. She spent the next three years praying she’d stay alive. Although she was one of over 300 child soldiers released this month, she said she still has nightmares of being recaptured.

More than 19 000 children have been recruited to armed groups since South Sudan’s war erupted in 2013 and over 2 300 children have been killed or injured, according to Unicef.

The UN has said it is committed to protecting children and that the ongoing fighting has severely affected them.

“Crimes like this against children are the darkest kind of abuse imaginable and are a flagrant violation of international law,” said Carolyn Miles, the aid group’s president and CEO. – AP/African News Agency (ANA)