At least 83 children were killed in war zones in West Asia and North Africa n January, most of them in Syria, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Monday, vowing their voices “will never be silenced”.
“They were killed in ongoing conflicts, suicide attacks or frozen to death as they fled active war zones,” said UNICEF’s regional director Geert Cappelaere.
“In the month of January alone, escalating violence in Iraq, Libya, the State of Palestine, Syria and Yemen has claimed the lives of at least 83 children,” he added.
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The highest death toll was in Syria where 59 children were killed in violence as the war there enters its eighth year, said the UNICEF. In Yemen, wracked by conflict since March 2015, 16 children were killed, it said.
In Libya’s second city Benghazi, a suicide attack killed three children while three others died while “playing near unexploded ordnance” and a fourth child was critically wounded.