A silent killer in war zones

Children are killed or injured in war zones around the world everyday. They’re collateral damage.

They’re even targets of war.  For many of these children, violence is just the beginning. They are forced to fight for their lives in more ways than one.

Viruses, diarrhoea and respiratory infections are common in children, but should not be life-threatening. But in conflict regions, like in Syria, South Sudan and Yemen, they are deadly. Less than one per cent of children die from measles in non emergency settings, but in an overcrowded refugee camp where access to treatment for diseases is difficult, this number can soar to 30 per cent.

Salih is seven but looks much younger. He’s experienced so much already in his short life.  Uprooted from his home in rural Aleppo due to fierce violence, Salih and his family escaped to relative safety in Tabqa three years ago. Because the fronts have moved Salih now, once again, lives in a fragile area where there conflict could erupt at any minute.

Salih is one of the lucky ones who is now vaccinated. Others still aren’t. As many as 7.7 million children are currently unimmunised and live in perilous situations, often conflict or war zones.

Currently, around the world, more countries are in armed conflicts than at any time in the past 30 years - conflicts which hamper the distribution of life-saving vaccines to innocent children.

South Sudan has the highest number of unimmunised infants (61%), followed by Somalia (58%) and Syria (57%). Without vaccinations, children suffer.
 

 

Saber, 10, is from Sarach Naghlo, a small village in Afghanistan. He contracted polio as a toddler as is now paralysed.

“We were refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Saber was only two-years-old,” his father Mohammed says.

“The polio virus hit Saber and left him paralysed. We did not vaccinate him since we were refugees.”

This story is all too common in conflict-struck countries like Afghanistan, Syria and South Sudan.
That’s why UNICEF is determined to vaccinate every child, no matter where they live.

With your help, we can keep children alive in situations they are powerless to stop.