UNICEF: 2.8 million Syrian children are out of school

NEW YORK – In a press statement on Sunday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced 2.8 million Syrian children cannot go to school, and a child dies about every 10 hours due to the ongoing war in Syria.

In the statement, UNICEF also said that children make up 60% of the roughly 900,000 civilians who have been displaced from Idlib over the past few months, drastically increasing the amount of child victims of Syria’s nine-year-long civil war.

Christian Schneider, Executive Director of UNICEF in Germany, called for the protection of children and infrastructure in Syria, in addition to a commitment by all parties to the ceasefire agreement in Idlib.

The countryside of Idlib and Aleppo has witnessed a military escalation in recent months, causing the displacement of hundreds-of-thousands of civilians, before the Russian-Turkish ceasefire agreement.

In late 2019, UNICEF announced the displacement of more than 60,000 children in a span of only 2 weeks as a result of the Turkish-led invasion of Tel Abyad, Rish Ayno (Ras al-Ayn), and the surrounding countryside in October of that year.