Post date: Aug 23, 2013 8:52:37 AM
The number of Syrian children forced to flee their homeland as refugees reaches one million, as the conflict continues well into its third year, displacing nearly two million outside the country, and many more within, as well as killing hundreds of thousands, according to the UN.
ZA'ATARI, JORDAN (UNHCR) - One million Syrian children have been forced to leave their country after more than two years of civil conflict that has seen hundreds of thousands perish, the United Nations said on Friday (August 23).
Children make up half of all refugees from the Syria conflict, according to UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the UN refugee agency.Most have arrived in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, though increasingly, Syrians are fleeing to North Africa and Europe.
Latest figures show that some 740,000 Syrian child refugees are under the age of 11.
In the Za'atari refugee camp in neighbouring Jordan -- home to 130,000 Syrians -- children are led in exercise routines and games to keep them entertained.
But for many, like 11-year-old Iman, originally from Dera'a, the memories are as vivid as they have ever been.
"The principal told us that the army was planning on occupying our school. I asked the principal if I could take leave for a few days to go to a neighbouring town and he said yes," she said.
"During those days we would see the rockets flying directly above us and we were trying to hide from them. That's when my uncle suggested that we leave for Za'atari," she added.
"It's safe here, even though home is better. Here we can go to sleep in peace and we never worry about shelling. But sometimes we hear fireworks and we think we are being attacked again, but we're just imagining it because of everything we've been through," Iman said.
Inside Syria, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, some 7,000 children have been killed during the conflict.
The UNHCR and UNICEF estimate that more than 2 million children have been internally displaced within Syria.
14-year-old Ahmed, also from Dera'a, said the pain of losing family members was impossible to forget.
"My brother has been killed and my sister experienced a brain injury, we thought we could not bring her here at first," he said.
"But in the end we brought her and my brother in an ambulance. We ended up burying him here," he told reporters.
"My sister has been receiving treatment to learn how to walk again after the accident. Because she lost usage of her left leg... I wish we could go back to home one day," he added.
The physical upheaval, fear, stress and trauma experienced by so many children account for just part of the human crisis.
Both agencies also highlight the threats to refugee children from child labour, early marriage and the potential for sexual exploitation and trafficking.
More than 3,500 children in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have crossed Syria's borders either unaccompanied or separated from their families.
The largest humanitarian operation in history has seen UNHCR and UNICEF mobilising support to millions of affected families and children.