Humanitarian work for children faces immense difficulties due to the ceaseless conflicts in some countries and regions, said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell while calling for global unity to build a world where children can survive and thrive.
In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) aired on Friday, Russell pointed out the devastating impact of conflict on children, whose normal livelihoods are completely disrupted.
"The humanitarian work is so challenging because we have one conflict after another. And if you think about children and what happens to them in a conflict, it's truly devastating. First, they're impacted directly - they can be killed or maimed or orphaned. Terrible things happen to children in these contexts. But children rely on social services, right? So, education, healthcare. What happens in a conflict? Those are completely disrupted," said the UNICEF chief.
She cited the example of Sudan in Northeast Africa where the deadly conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since mid-April 2023 has displaced millions of people.
"Let me give you an example of Sudan. I was there not too long ago. Seventeen million of those children have been out of school for a year, and there's no sign that they're going back anytime soon. In this camp that UNICEF supports, and I was talking to the girls - there were four of them and they were about 12 years old. And they were telling me what it was like. And I said, 'how do you think about your future?' And the interesting thing was, they kept telling me, 'I want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a lawyer'. I was really so moved by that because I thought their lives have been crushed completely almost in a way that's hard to imagine - the things that they've seen. But they still have hope, right? They believe that the world may work out well for them," said Russell.
She underscored the abject conditions children fall into when a conflict breaks out, calling for international cooperation in easing tensions around the world to create peace for children.
"If you look at Gaza, Sudan, Afghanistan, DRC (the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the numbers and the places continue to grow, and the challenges are immense, and children suffer so much in those places. War is always the worst enemy of children, and I think we just have to all join hands. And that's why this cooperation is important. Everyone needs to come together and think about what kind of world do we want. We want a world where children can survive and thrive," said Russell.
Humanitarian work for children faces mutliple challenges amid unending conflict worldwide: UNICEF chief
