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A Third of Syrian Children Have Lived Their Whole Lives Amid the Chaos of War

As peace talks are set to convene in Geneva, UNICEF released a devastating report detailing how five years of war has impacted Syria's more than 10 million children.
Photo via EPA

As diplomats convene in Geneva to try to end the Syrian conflict, a new report from the UN's children fund UNICEF highlights the horrors children have endured amidst nearly five years of civil war in Syria. Nearly 2.4 million Syrian children are now refugees, and one in three Syrian children have lived their entire lives amid the chaos of war.

UNICEF's report, "No Place for Children," warns that an entire generation of Syrians will grow up in environment "shaped by violence, fear and displacement." In total, 8.4 million Syrian children — around 80 percent of the country's entire population below the age of 18 — are in need of humanitarian assistance.

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The international response plan for Syria, UNCIF said, is now chronically underfunded. And the situation appears to be getting worse.

UNICEF documented 1,500 "grave violations against children" in 2015 — more than half of those instances included the killing or maiming of a child.

On top of that, Syrian children are increasingly living without access to basic necessities.

"Twice as many people now live under siege or in hard-to-reach areas compared with 2013," the report said. "At least two million of those cut off from assistance are children, including more than 200,000 in areas under siege."

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The UN has also said that more than 450,000 people are under siege in Syria. Cases of starvation have been reported this year in areas surrounded by government forces and their allies near Damascus, and by Islamic State in eastern Syria.

Amid the chaos, children are increasingly being pressed into military service.

"A trend of particular concern is the increase in child recruitment," UNICEF said. "Children report being actively encouraged to join the war by parties to the conflict offering gifts and 'salaries' of up to $400 a month."

Beginning last year, the warring sides began recruiting younger and younger children, UNICEF said — some as young as seven. More than half of children recruited in cases UNICEF verified in 2015 were under 15. Children have also been filmed executing prisoners in grisly propaganda videos by the Islamic State group.

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"These children are receiving military training and participating in combat, or taking up life-threatening roles at the battlefront, including carrying and maintaining weapons, manning checkpoints, and treating and evacuating war wounded," the report said. "Parties to the conflict are using children to kill, including as executioners or snipers."

Meanwhile, outside Syria, 306,000 Syrian children have been born as refugees since the conflict began in 2011. The UN refugee agency UNHCR reported that nearly 70,000 Syrian refugee children have been born in Lebanon alone.

Social services for children have been especially hard hit by the war. Some 2.8 million Syrian children in Syria or neighboring countries are not attending school. In the last year alone, aid groups have documented dozens of attacks targeting schools and hospitals.

"Half of all medical staff have fled Syria and only one third of hospitals are functional," UNICEF said. "Each doctor used to look after the needs of around 600 people – now it's up to 4,000."

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After months of diplomatic wrangling, UN-brokered peace talks opened on Monday in Geneva. The talks come after a two-week ceasefire that successfully reduced violence within the country, but failed to bring a complete end to hostilities. While the talks are aimed at holding an election within 18 months, its unclear if they will produce a longterm agreement. Before the talks, Syrian government officials vowed to not discuss transitioning Syria's President Bashar al-Assad out of power — that's a condition, however, that Syrian rebel groups appear unwilling to budge on.

UN Syria Envoy Staffan de Mistura referenced the UNICEF report on Monday, as he tried to convince the warring parities to settle their differences. The conflict's toll on children, Mistura told reporters in Geneva, is "a reminder" that negotiators are obligated to minimize hostilities at "any cost."

"So let me please remind you," De Mistura said. "3.7 million children have only seen war in Syria… almost 1,000 of them were killed last year, and 150 of them while they were sitting in their own schools."

Reuters contributed to this report