AFP, Nairobi :
War has now forced more than one million children to flee South Sudan and uprooted 1.4 million others within the country, the United Nations said on Monday.
Children make up 62 percent of the 1.8 million people who have fled South Sudan for refugee camps in neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda since civil war began in 2013, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a joint press release.
Another 1.4 million children are living in camps inside South Sudan.
“The future of a generation is truly on the brink,” said UNICEF’s Leila Pakkala.
“The horrifying fact that nearly one in five children in South Sudan has been forced to flee their home illustrates how devastating this conflict has been for the country’s most vulnerable,” she said.
South Sudan won its independence in 2011 but two years later a new conflict began when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup.
The war quickly spread, splitting the country along ethnic lines and triggering famine in some areas earlier this year.
“No refugee crisis today worries me more than South Sudan,” said Valentin Tapsoba of the UNHCR.
War has now forced more than one million children to flee South Sudan and uprooted 1.4 million others within the country, the United Nations said on Monday.
Children make up 62 percent of the 1.8 million people who have fled South Sudan for refugee camps in neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda since civil war began in 2013, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a joint press release.
Another 1.4 million children are living in camps inside South Sudan.
“The future of a generation is truly on the brink,” said UNICEF’s Leila Pakkala.
“The horrifying fact that nearly one in five children in South Sudan has been forced to flee their home illustrates how devastating this conflict has been for the country’s most vulnerable,” she said.
South Sudan won its independence in 2011 but two years later a new conflict began when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup.
The war quickly spread, splitting the country along ethnic lines and triggering famine in some areas earlier this year.
“No refugee crisis today worries me more than South Sudan,” said Valentin Tapsoba of the UNHCR.
