The number of children forced to leave their homes at the end of 2021 reached the highest level since World War II - 36.5 million. This was reported to UNICEF.
“UNICEF estimates that conflict, violence and other crises caused a record 36.5 million children to leave their homes at the end of 2021, the highest number since World War II.. This figure includes 13.7 million child refugee asylum seekers and nearly 22.8 million children internally displaced due to conflict and violence..
It is noted that these figures do not include children displaced as a result of climate and environmental shocks or disasters, as well as children who were again displaced in 2022, including as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine..
The record number of refugee children is a direct result of crises, including acute and prolonged conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan, instability in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Yemen, and associated shocks exacerbated by the effects of climate change. Over the past year, the number of refugee children in the world has increased by 2.2 million.
Crises such as Russia's war against Ukraine, which has displaced more than 2 million children and 3 million internally displaced since February, are the pinnacle of this record.. In addition, children and families are driven out of their homes by extreme weather events such as drought and severe floods..
The number of refugees in the world has more than doubled in the past decade, with children accounting for almost half of the total.. More than a third of displaced children live in sub-Saharan Africa (3.9 million or 36 percent), one quarter in Europe and Central Asia (2.6 million or 25 percent) and 13 percent (1.4 million) in the Middle.
As the number of displaced and refugee children reaches an all-time high, access to essential support and services such as health care, education and protection becomes insufficient. About two thirds of all refugee children are in primary school, while only about one third of refugee teenagers are in secondary school.
UNICEF is calling on countries to uphold their commitments to the rights of all children who have been forced to leave their homes, including commitments under the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact for Migration (GCM), and to invest in research that reflects the real scale of the problems,.
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