300 children drowned trying to reach Europe so far this year.
According to Reuters, the United Nations has announced that this year nearly 300 children have died in the Mediterranean Sea on the way to the transfer of asylum seekers to Europe.
Unicef says the true death toll is likely to be much higher, as many boats that have sunk in the Mediterranean remain unrecorded.
The United Nations Children’s Agency, UNICEF, said this figure was twice the number recorded in the first six months of 2022. The organization also called for the expansion of safe, legal, and accessible routes for child asylum seekers with European support.
However, Verna Knaus pointed to UNICEF’s global leadership on migration and displacement and said: “More children have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe in the first half of this year than in the same period last year. The past has doubled. “In the first six months of this year, we estimate that 11,600 children have crossed this crossing, which is almost twice as many as in the same period in 2022.”
UNICEF said that in the first three months of 2023, some 3,300 children – 71% of all children arriving in Europe via the Central Mediterranean route – were registered as unaccompanied or separated. This figure is three times more than the same period last year.
“These children need to know that they are not alone,” Knaus said. “World leaders must act urgently to demonstrate the undeniable value of children’s lives and go beyond condolences to find effective solutions.”
Last month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that the number of displaced children around the world reached 43.3 million by the end of last year, six months ago.
UNICEF Executive Director Kathryn Russell said: “For more than a decade, the number of children forced to leave their homes has increased at an alarming rate, and our global capacity to manage the situation continues to be under severe pressure. This increase in the number of displaced children has occurred due to the continuous increase in conflicts, crises, and climate disasters around the world.
UNICEF’s annual report notes that most displaced children have spent their entire childhoods displaced and that the number of children forcibly displaced from their homes has doubled in the past decade.
According to this report, the war in Ukraine forcibly displaced 2 million children and 1 million children were internally displaced.
The report states that of the 43.3 million children forcibly displaced by the end of 2022, nearly 60 percent (25.8 million) were displaced within their own countries due to conflict and violence.
Also, the number of refugee children has reached a new record of 17.5 million people in the world, which does not include the newly displaced children in 2023, including those displaced during the conflict in Sudan.
The report states that 940,000 children have been displaced by the conflict in Sudan so far, and it is also noted that extreme weather events around the world have displaced millions of children.
