Country: Iraq

According to Hamida Ramadhani, UNICEF’s Deputy Representative in Iraq, despite the end of the battle in Mosul, children’s deep physical and mental scars will take time to heal. Some 650,000 boys and girls have paid a terrible price and endured many horrors over the past three years. Meanwhile, working with partners, UNICEF has managed to reunify 1,333 unaccompanied or separated children from Mosul with their families.
In a later statement, Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, expressed that extreme suffering continues in the region and that violence and conflicts are putting the lives and futures of nearly 27 million children at risk. In the city of Raqqa in Syria, violence has further intensified, with children repeatedly coming under attack. Cappelaere wonders how we can “build a more stable and prosperous future for all while children are exposed to such horrors and treated this way”.
For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, you can visit
www.unicef.org or http://uni.cf/iraqcrisis