The humanitarian group said this meant that one in five children worldwide lived in active conflict zones in 2024.
The report states that 41,763 “serious violations of children’s rights” were confirmed last year alone, a 30 percent increase from 2023 and a record high number.
More than half of the total number of cases of serious violations were committed in just four regions: the Palestinian territories under Israeli occupation, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Somalia, reports Hina.
In March 2024, the leader of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced on Platform X, referring to UN data, that in the attacks of the Israeli army on the Gaza Strip, “more children were killed in Gaza in four months than in four years in all conflicts around the world”.
The Save the Children report noted that there were a total of 61 state-level conflicts, meaning those in which at least one warring party was a state government, the highest number since 1946.
Florian Westphal, CEO of Save the Children Germany, called for urgent political action. At a time of global military build-up, child protection must be at the center of security policy, he said, adding that it was scandalous that governments were spending more on weapons than protecting children in conflict zones.
The report is based on data from the Oslo-based Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and United Nations reports.
Conflict zones are defined as areas within 50 kilometers of a place that have experienced at least one “conflict incident” in a given year.
(Vijestri.ba)
