27, Feb 2019

According to recent a Save the Children report released earlier this month, “starvation, disease and a lack of aid” may be resulting in the deaths of 300 babies per day in conflict zones around the globe, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported. The organisation analysed United Nations data from 2013-2017. Save the Children stated in its announcement of the report that “At least 550,000 deaths of children under the age of one could be attributed to the effects of conflict in the 10 worst-affected conflict zones between 2013 and 2017”. These ten areas, where children have been the most impacted, are: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. When considering children under age 5, the deaths amounted to 870,000. In Africa, the Thomson Reuters Foundation noted, five million children have died in the last two decades because conflict hampered their access to basic healthcare or clean water, per a 2018 report in the medical journal Lancet. Save the Children said it found through research conducted alongside the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) that 420 million children worldwide–or 18%–were living in conflict areas in 2017. This figure was 30 million more than in 2016, and the highest since 1990. Save the Children’s report, titled ‘Stop the War on Children’, may be read here.