The UN children’s agency Monday appealed for $2.5 billion in new funds for 39 million children in the Middle East and North Africa impacted by war, poverty, and the coronavirus pandemic.
“The region is home to the highest number of children in need in the world,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“This is largely due to man-made crises including armed conflicts, poverty, and economic stagnation.”
He said the latest appeal “aims to reach children with critical humanitarian assistance and continue responding to the massive needs emerging as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Children are most in need in war-torn Yemen, in and outside conflict-wracked Syria, and in Sudan, UNICEF said in a statement.
In Yemen, 12 million children, or almost every child, need assistance after five years of conflict, it said.
In Syria, 4.8 million children need aid after a civil war has killed more than 380,000 people, displaced millions, and ravaged the economy.
A further 2.5 million live as refugees in neighboring countries after their parents fled the almost ten-year conflict.
In Sudan, 5.3 million children need aid because of unprecedented floods, an economic crisis, and a sweeping political transition from autocratic rule toward democracy.
In Lebanon, 1.9 million children now rely on assistance as the economy has plummeted and following a massive explosion in Beirut that killed more than 200 people and ravaged large parts of the capital in August.
Most funds requested in UNICEF’s appeal would go towards supporting children’s education, while the rest would ensure access to water, sanitation, healthcare and nutrition, and mental health support, it said.
“We hear of fatigue to fund long-term crises like in Yemen and Syria,” Chaiban said.
But he stressed that “the world cannot turn a blind eye to the needs of children impacted by two of the most horrific conflicts in recent history”.
(AFP)
August 27, 2017 -- Sabah Abdullah Salim’s children play with their friends in front of their home in Al Buraiqeh, a remote village on the outskirts of Aden, Yemen. Sabah brought her youngest son, Mohammed Ameen Salim, 2 [not pictured], to an IRC mobile health clinic in Al Buraiqeh, He was severely acutely malnourished and was treated by the IRC. The following week, Mohammed had not improved, so IRC Mobile Health Team Nutrition Assistance, Aysha Hassan Adbullah, referred him to IRC-supported Al Sadaqa Hospital in Aden where he was for 10 days before recovering. Aysha visited Mohammed every day after work to see that he was getting better. She said, “It was the first time I had seen a child so sick, and I got attached to him and his mother. I am very happy now. Without the IRC, he might have died.” Mohammed’s mother, Sabah, is grateful for the IRC. “I found him thin, always crying and not sleeping. I am so happy with the IRC’s decisions, because he was dying.” Yemen is now facing one of the worst protection and humanitarian crises, with an alarming 20.7 million people in need of some kind of humanitarian or protection support. 17 million people are also food insecure, with more than 7 million of them in need of emergency food assistance. Food insecurity has particularly impacted children. More than 2.2 million Yemeni children are malnourished, of which 80% of these children are severely. 
