Due to the escalating conflict, ten million children in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
In a report released on Friday, the UN children’s agency stated that as conflict between armed groups and national security forces spills over borders, over four million more children are at risk in neighbouring countries.
According to Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF’s regional director for Western and Central Africa, children are becoming more and more involved in the armed conflict as victims of escalating military clashes or as targets of non-state armed organisations.
In the central Sahel, 2022 was a very violent year for kids. Attacks against children, their schools, hospitals, and homes must immediately halt from all parties involved in the conflict.
As the armed groups affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda began to vie for dominance, the central Sahel has been plagued by instability.
Following an insurrection in the country’s north in 2012, the conflict began in Mali and has since extended across the Sahel and into West African nations. Attacks have exacerbated racial tensions that have been stoked in part by severe climate change.
More than 18.6 million people in the region now experience “severe food insecurity,” an increase of 5.6 million since the end of June 2022, as a result of armed factions battling for dominance and control of resources.
According to a study by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released in January, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria are the countries most severely affected. The number of displaced individuals in the Sahel has increased by 300,000 since June to almost 6.3 million.
The number of children at danger has doubled since 2020, according to a UNICEF report. According to UN figures, there were three times as many child deaths in Burkina Faso during the first nine months of 2022 as there were during the same period in 2021.
According to the research, the majority of the children lost their lives to gunshot wounds sustained during attacks on their communities or as a result of IEDs or other explosive remnants of war.
The research highlighted the ways in which armed groups operating in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger blockade cities and villages, undermine water systems, criticise public education, destroy and pillage schools, and threaten, kidnap, or kill teachers.
By June 2023, “over 20,000 individuals” in the Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger border region will experience “catastrophe”-level food shortages, according to the report. Approximately 8,300 schools have closed down in the three countries as a result of being specifically targeted.
The northern border regions of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo are now experiencing violence from the central Sahel, which has previously been plagued by a lack of infrastructure and resources.
Poirier demanded a “immediate” and “stronger” humanitarian response, saying the situation in the central Sahel and surrounding nations also required long-term adaptable investment in robust social services that will contribute in ensuring a better future for children.
