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Children in Armed Conflict

UNICEF installation on the North Lawn at the UN Headquarters in New York highlights the grave scale of child deaths in conflict during 2018. (8 September 2019).
© UNICEF/Farber/Getty

UNICEF backpacks used as a haunting symbol to call for greater protection of children living in conflict

As children in many parts of the world return to school, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched a haunting installation on Sunday that displays 3,758 school backpacks as headstones to illustrate the grave scale of child deaths in conflict in 2018 and call for greater protection of children living in conflict. 

Three former child soldiers at Elevage camp in Bambari, Central African Republic.
UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson

Help prevent children ‘from becoming victims in the first place’, implores Guterres at campaign launch 

From killing and maiming, to recruitment, sexual abuse and abduction, “violence against children in armed conflict can take many forms”, said Secretary-General António Guterres, in a special message delivered at the launch of a new UN advocacy campaign on Tuesday - Act to Protect Children Affected by Conflict