The war caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected every aspect of the lives of Ukrainian children, with an entire generation going through “12 months of violence, fear, loss and tragedy”, UNICEF summarized this Tuesday.
Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian children “have been killed, injured, forced to leave their homes, lost access to critical education and denied the benefits of a safe and secure environment” , detailed the United Nations agency for children, in a statement.
“Children in Ukraine have lived through a year of terror,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Millions of children go to bed cold and scared, and wake up hoping for an end to this brutal war. Children were killed and injured, and many lost parents and siblings, their homes, schools and places to play. No child should ever have to endure that kind of suffering,” she stressed.
Among the radically and violently changed facets of everyday life, UNICEF mentions socioeconomic conditions and mental health.
As he pointed out, the well-being of children and families in Ukraine has suffered “devastating effects” of the war, right from the start in the field of the economy, “with a vast number of families reporting a significant loss of income”, as in energy, with recurring supply problems.
UNICEF specified that its survey found that 80% of respondents mentioned a deterioration in their economic situation and that it has information indicating that the percentage of children living in poverty has almost doubled from 43% to 82%. “The situation is especially serious for the 5.9 million people who are currently internally displaced in Ukraine,” he said.
On the other hand, the war is also having a “devastating impact” on the mental health and well-being of children, in terms of what he estimated that “1.5 million children are at risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder”. trauma and other mental health problems, with potential long-term effects and implications”.
To make matters worse, “the access of children and families to basic services has been annihilated”, with “more than a thousand health facilities damaged or destroyed by bombings and air attacks”, attacks that caused “death or serious injuries to patients – including children – as well as medical personnel”.
Still in terms of the negative consequences of the Russian invasion for Ukrainian children’s health, “thousands of children fleeing conflicts across the country are not receiving vital routine immunizations to stay protected from polio, measles, diphtheria and other potentially fatal diseases”, UNICEF also advanced.
The UN agency also pointed out that, “to further aggravate this issue, the war has disrupted the education of more than five million children, denying them the sense of structure, security, normality and hope that the classroom provides them. ”.
After stating that “children need an end to this war and sustained peace to regain their childhood, return to normalcy and begin to recover”, Catherine Russell stated that, “until that happens, it is absolutely critical that mental health and the psychosocial needs of children are considered a priority”.
This priority should translate into “actions to provide age-appropriate nutrition care, initiatives to build resilience and, especially in the case of older children and adolescents, opportunities to express their concerns”.