500,000 Children Under Siege in Syria, UNICEF Calls for Help

TIL Desk World/United Nations/ As nearly 500,000 children are living under siege amid escalating violence across Syria, the UN Children`s Fund (UNICEF) has called for lifting sieges and allowing immediate humanitarian access.

The number of children living under siege has doubled in less than one year, “Nearly 500,000 children now live in 16 besieged areas across the country, almost completely cut off from sustained humanitarian aid and basic services,” it added.

“For millions of human beings in Syria, life has become an endless nightmare — in particular for the hundreds of thousands of children living under siege,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.

He added that children are being killed and injured and are too afraid “to go to school or even play”. They are “surviving with little food and hardly any medicine”. In the absence of safe spaces, children are turning to basement playgrounds, schools and hospitals to continue playing, learning and seeking medical care when necessary.