Aid organization
Unicef: 47 million children in Africa need help
Children from the Congo look curiously into the camera. The Democratic Republic of Congo has the highest number of child rights violations in the world. photo
© picture alliance / dpa
Children are not the cause of conflicts, but they are still directly affected by them. In West and Central Africa, children are particularly dependent on humanitarian aid.
“Children do not cause conflicts, but they are unable to stop them,” said Unicef Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Felicité Tchibindat. She cited Burkina Faso, Mali and the Central African Republic, among others, as examples of countries where children suffer from conflict, ethnic violence and displacement. The highest number of cases of child rights violations in the world are recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country also has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced people in the world.
But children in the region are not only exposed to violence and conflict. More than a third of the almost 1.9 billion US dollars (around 1.7 billion euros) that Unicef asked for in a donation appeal goes to the fight against malnutrition. The Sahel region is particularly badly affected by drought.