Children make up half of ‘displaced’

A children’s advocacy group warned yesterday that nearly half of 400,000 displaced in the Syrian government’s two-monthlong offensive on the country’s last rebel-held region are children, calling it a wave of displacement unlike anything seen before in the war in Syria.

The offensive by the Syrian government forces, backed by ally Russia, has focused mainly on Idlib province, and also lately on neighbouring Aleppo, in an attempt to seize control of a strategic highway that links the capital, Damascus, and the north. The UN has estimated 390,000 Syrians were displaced over the past two months.