There are records of 300 children killed and more than 400,000 displaced in Lebanon in the last three weeks. Senior UNICEF official warns of a possible “lost generation.”
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More than 400,000 children have been displaced in the last three weeks in Lebanon, a senior UNICEF official said on Tuesday, warning of a possible “lost generation” due to the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The deputy executive director of humanitarian actions at the United Nations Children’s Fund, Ted Chaiban, visited schools transformed into shelters to accommodate displaced families in Lebanon.
“What caught my attention was that this war has already been going on for three weeks and so many children have already been affected“Chaiban told the Associated Press (AP) news agency in Beirut.
“Today, while we are here, 1.2 million children are deprived of education. Their public schools have become inaccessible, have been damaged by war, or are being used as shelters. The last thing this country needs, in addition to everything that has already happened, is the risk of a lost generation,” highlighted the Unicef official.
“It is worrying to know that we have hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian children who are at risk of losing their learning,” Chaiban said.
More than 2,300 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks, nearly 75% of them in the last month, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. In the last three weeks, More than 100 children were killed and more than 800 injured.Chaiban said.
The senior UNICEF official highlighted that displaced children are overcrowded in overcrowded shelters, where three or four families can live in a classroom separated by a plastic sheet and where 1,000 people can share 12 bathrooms. Many displaced families set up tents along roads or on public beaches.
Although some Lebanese private schools continue to operate, The public school system was severely affected by the war, along with the country’s most vulnerable people.such as Palestinian and Syrian refugees.
The escalation of violence has left more than 100 primary health care units out of service and 12 hospitals are no longer functioning or only provide partial services.
In the last three weeks, 26 stations that supply water to almost 350,000 people have been damaged. UNICEF is working with local authorities to repair them, according to Chaiban.
“What we need to do is make sure that this ends, that this madness ends, that there is a ceasefire before we get to the kind of destruction, pain, suffering and death that we saw in Gaza,” Chaiban said.
With so many needs, he said, Lebanon’s $108 million emergency response appeal was only 8% funded three weeks after the escalation began.
Chaiban called for protecting civilian infrastructure and called for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gazasaying that there needs to be political will and an understanding that the conflict cannot be resolved by military means.
After a year of exchanges of fire on the border, Israel has in recent weeks intensified its campaign against the Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon, including ground operations.
Fighting in Lebanon has forced 1.2 million people from their homes, most of whom have fled to Beirut and other parts of the north in the past three weeks since the violence escalated.
Source: Observadora
