Syria’s Children Of War: Young Lives Among Hardest Hit As Conflict Reaches 5-year Point

An estimated 8.4 million children are among the hardest hit in the aftermath of the crippling chaos and conflict that has now reached the 5-year point. According to UNICEF estimates, more than 3.6 million Syrian children, 5-years or younger are now living under the shadow of a deadly conflict, amid fears of death, displacement and devastation.

According to Dr. Peter Salama, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, for children in Syria, violence and chaos is an everyday phenomenon.

”In Syria, violence has become commonplace, reaching homes, schools, hospitals, clinics, parks, playgrounds and places of worship. Nearly 7 million children live in poverty, making their childhood one of loss and deprivation.”

For over 5 years, the conflict in Syria has unleashed one of the most calamitous humanitarian events ever, obliterating hundreds of thousands and uprooting half of the nation’s people. Of the nearly 3 million people that have been forced to flee into neighboring countries, the fact that nearly half of these numbers comprise children underlines their grim plight as well as the enormous gravity of the current crisis.

According to reports, from the very outset, children as young as eight had been maliciously exploited and used as human shields by a host of competing militias with many forcibly recruiting children as young as 14 as soldiers, employing them at the front lines and thrusting their lives into peril.

In 2013, nearly 450 children succumbed to an onslaught of chemical warfare with many others left with little or no access to learning or recreation amid the rubble and the ruins of their homes as well as a rapidly disintegrating infrastructure. UNICEF estimates show a staggering 2.1 million children inside Syria, and 700,000 in neighboring countries, as being ‘out-of-school’.

Children remain by far the most vulnerable group of survivors in any conflict and are invariably exposed to physical and sexual abuse, abduction, forced recruitment, emotional trauma and lack of adequate nutrition and medical care. In 2006, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict reported that more than 250,000 children were exploited as soldiers around the world. A 2013 report had shed light on the scourge of forced recruitment and exploitation of children as combatants in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Central African Republic and many more.

Last year, an extensive study exploring the behavior of children tormented by war conducted by Dr. Panos Vostanis from the University of Leicester concluded that children are prone to severe psychological complications following a prolonged exposure to violence or loss as well as a lack of adequate parental support.

“We now have sufficient evidence on the devastating effects of war and other conflicts on children worldwide. We also have increasing access to effective approaches in helping children in the most remote parts of the planet.”

According to experts, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most frequently documented disorder in children exposed to prolonged periods of conflict. Children and adolescents are known to be highly sensitive to both a single-incident traumatic event as well as a more prolonged distressing experience.

At least half of the children who had experienced a traumatic life event were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a University of Bielefeld study which addressed the psychological needs of children in post-war Afghanistan. The study concluded that children who live in war-infested pockets of land were particularly affected by “war stressors” enhancing their likelihood of developing the condition after having witnessed bombings and abuse on a daily basis.

In the meanwhile, more than 15,000 unaccompanied and separated children have reportedly crossed Syria’s borders into neighboring lands making any realistic prospect of relief for these uprooted young lives appallingly grim. As it stands, for the children languishing both within the hostile confines of their immediate borders as well as the somewhat unreceptive and unfamiliar lands that lie beyond them, a sense of childhood is far too quickly fading away.

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