World fails to stop war on children: UNICEF
United Nations: The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said violence had a devastating toll on children, who were being killed in ongoing conflicts or suicide attacks, or freezing to death as they fled active war zones.
Describing January as "a dark month" in crisis-torn Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, Unicef Director for the region on Monday said that "it is simply unacceptable that children continue being killed and injured every single day", Xinhua reported.
In the month of January alone, escalating violence in Iraq, Libya, the Palestine, Syria and Yemen has claimed the lives of at least 83 children.
"These children have paid the highest price for wars that they have absolutely no responsibility for. Their lives have been cut short, their families forever broken in grief," he added.
Cappelaere said that as the Syrian conflict enters its eighth year, intensifying fighting has reportedly killed 59 children in the past four weeks. Moreover, across Yemen the UN has verified the killing of 16 children in attacks and continues to receive daily reports of more killed and injured children amidst escalating fighting.
Additionally, a suicide attack took the lives of three children in Libya's Benghazi while three others died playing near unexploded ordnance, a fourth child remains in critical condition after the blast.
Turning to the old city of Mosul in Iraq, a child was killed in a booby-trapped house, and in Palestine, a boy was shot dead in a village near Ramallah.
Furthermore, 16 refugees, including four children, froze to death in a harsh winter storm in Lebanon, fleeing the war in Syria, where many more children were hospitalized with frost bite.
"We collectively continue failing to stop the war on children," Cappelaere noted.
He added that that "not hundreds, not thousands but millions more children in the Middle East and North Africa region have their childhoods stolen, maimed for life, traumatized, arrested and detained, exploited, prevented from going to school and from getting the most essential health services; denied even the basic righ
t to play."
Cappelaere maintained that "we have no justification, no reason to accept this as a new normal."
"Children may have been silenced. But their voices will continue to be heard. Their message is our message: The protection of children is paramount under all circumstances, in line with the law of war," he argued.
"Breaching that law is a most heinous crime and jeopardizes the future, and not just for children," concluded the Unicef regional director.
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Delhi govt likely to conduct trail for artificial rain in May to combat pollution: Minister
New Delhi, Apr 3 (PTI): The Delhi government is likely to conduct a trial for artificial rain in May as part of its efforts to tackle air pollution, Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said on Thursday.
The trial will be carried out in an area in outer Delhi, with the final site selection to be made by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and IIT Kanpur, he said.
Sirsa said the plan is part of a broader strategy to tackle pollution using multiple methods.
“This is a war against pollution and we are working on various measures, with artificial rain being one of them. Before implementing it on a large scale, we will try to conduct a trial in May when summer is at its peak,” he added.
He further said, “We have asked for detailed reports to determine whether the chemicals used in cloud seeding could have any harmful effects on human health or the environment."
Based on the findings, we will conduct a small-scale test and analyze water samples. If the trial is successful, we will expand the project across Delhi during periods of severe pollution, the environment minister said.
