Record number of children living in conflict zones in 2024: UNICEF

The record number of children living in conflict zones or forcibly displaced by global wars “must not be the new normal”, the executive director of the United Nations children’s agency said on Saturday.

Catherine Russell, who heads the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), released a detailed statement which details the effects of conflict and violence on children around the world in 2024, revealing that it is estimated that more children than ever are living in the midst of violent conflict or have been forced from their homes due to war in the past year.

More than 473 million children – more than 1 in 6 – were affected by conflict in 2024, including aerateSudan, Ukraine and Haiti.

“By almost every measure, 2024 was one of the worst years in UNICEF’s history for children in conflict – both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” said Russell. “A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to drop out of school, be malnourished, or be forced to leave home—too often repeatedly—compared to a child living in places of peace… We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s uncontrolled wars”.

UNICEF said the UN had not yet verified the number of child victims in global conflicts for 2024. But the most recent data available, from 2023, showed a record 32,990 serious violations against 22,557 children.

“With the general trend of increasing serious violations – for example, thousands of children were killed and injured in Gaza and Ukraine, the UN verified more child victims in the first 9 months of 2024 than in all of 2023 – this year is likely to see another increase,” UNICEF said.

The percentage of children living in conflict zones around the globe has almost doubled since the 1990s, when it was 10%.

The statistics also mean record numbers of children are being violated, including being forced to stop their education, missing life-saving vaccines, losing access to routine healthcare and being critically malnourished.

More than 52 million children have been estimated to be out of school this year due to conflict, with education infrastructure destroyed in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.

It is estimated that over half a million people live in Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) Phase 5 – famine – which is defined such as the 20% of households experiencing extreme food insecurity, the 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition, or populations experiencing two to four deaths each day from starvation.

In the case of Gaza, Israel and the US – which supported the Israeli assault on the enclave that began in 2023 – was vehement denied that famine took hold, even as experts reported widespread starvation there.

About 40% of unvaccinated or undervaccinated children live in conflict-affected countries, where disruptions to sanitation services and adequate nutrition can also make them particularly vulnerable to life-threatening and preventable diseases.

Children are also disproportionately represented among global refugees. While children make up 30% of the global population, about 40% of the refugee population and almost half of internally displaced people are children.

“Children in war zones face a daily struggle for survival that robs them of their childhood,” said Russell. “Their schools are bombed, homes destroyed and families torn apart. They lose not only their safety and access to the basic necessities to sustain life, but also the chance to play, learn and just be kids.”

“As we look to 2025,” she said, “we must do more to turn the tide and save and improve children’s lives.”