Editor TLN
March 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Some ten million boys and girls are at extreme risk in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger due to the “spiral of conflicts” in the area, twice as many as in 2020, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which He has asked for humanitarian aid and has denounced the “growing threat” that hangs over children in this area.
“Armed conflicts increasingly affect children, who are victims of escalating military confrontations or become targets of non-state armed groups,” said UNICEF Regional Director for West Africa and Central, Marie-Pierre Poirier.
Almost four million children from neighboring countries such as Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo are at risk due to border clashes between different armed groups and national security forces, of which 172 were registered last year.
In Burkina Faso alone, three times as many child deaths were recorded during the first nine months of 2022 as in the same period of 2021, and most of them died from gunshot wounds or explosive devices, according to UN data.
Some armed groups that move throughout the area are engaged in the blockade of cities and villages and the sabotage of the water supply; Others oppose state education and their activities include the systematic burning and looting of schools, where teachers are threatened, kidnapped or killed, which has forced the closure of more than 8,300 educational centers in the three countries.
“The year 2022 has been particularly violent for children in the central Sahel. All parties to the conflict must urgently stop the attacks against children and against their schools, health centers and homes,” Poirier said.
More than 20,000 inhabitants in the border area between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger will experience catastrophic food insecurity by June 2023, according to UN forecasts.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The crisis is taking place in one of the regions most affected by climate change, where temperatures have risen 1.5 times faster than the global average.
In addition, the rains are becoming more intense and irregular, which has caused the worst floods in recent years, which in turn have reduced crop yields, contaminated scarce water supplies and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
UNICEF has expressed “insufficient” funding to respond to the crisis in the central Sahel, of which it only received a third of the 391 million dollars (368 million euros) in 2022. For this year, the organization has requested 473, 8 million dollars (446 million euros).
“The scale of the crisis in the central Sahel and, increasingly, in neighboring coastal countries urgently requires a stronger humanitarian response, as well as long-term flexible investment in resilient essential social services that help consolidate social cohesion, sustainable development and a better future for boys and girls”, added Poirier.
The UN agency has also demanded that the parties to the conflict comply with International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, which includes ending attacks against children and the services that support them and respecting humanitarian spaces.
