Children

"Every day 1,200 people, half of them children, are killed in the conflict-hit Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because of violence, disease and malnutrition, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a report issued today. The report, Child Alert: DRC, also states that more children under age five die each year in the African country than in China -- a country with 23 times the population. It draws attention to the appalling fact that the total countrywide death toll every six months is similar to that for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people in 12 countries." [More]

From CNN's Christiane Amanpour: "According to the United Nations, there are 12 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four short years that number will skyrocket to 18.4 million. That means AIDS orphans will make up 15 to 20 percent of the population in some African countries.

"The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued an urgent appeal Monday for 7.7 million dollars to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the 'most vulnerable' children in Ethiopia during the second half of 2006. UNICEF said in a statement that unless it secured the funding, it would have to cancel the second half of a programme which reaches 7 million children twice a year with vitamin A supplements, measles vaccination and anti-malaria nets." [More]

Alertnet: "The United Nations launched a drive on Thursday to "disaster-proof" schools to prevent children being crushed in earthquakes and swept away in floods.

"Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year, and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. In its report, UNICEF said one of every four children under age 5, including 146 million children in the developing world, is underweight. The most troublesome area in the world is South Asia, where 46 percent of children are underweight. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for half of the world's underweight children even though they have only 30 percent of the world's population of children under 5." [Read more]

Rick Reilly: "I've never asked for anything before, right? Well, sorry, I'm asking now. We need nets. Not hoop nets, soccer nets or lacrosse nets. Not New Jersey Nets or dot-nets or clarinets. Mosquito nets. See, nearly 3,000 kids die every day in Africa from malaria. And according to the World Health Organization, transmission of the disease would be reduced by 60% with the use of mosquito nets and prompt treatment for the infected."

© WFP/Nancy Palus "Violence and lack of money is hampering humanitarian help for Sudan's Darfur region and malnutrition is rising again, the United Nations' Children's Fund said on Wednesday. "We want to sound the alarm. We must do everything to stop this deterioration," UNICEF's representative for Sudan Ted Chaiban told journalists. The number of people fleeing their homes to escape fighting between rebels, the army and government-backed militias had risen by 200,000 to more than 2 million in the past three months, he said." [Read more]

"At least 300 child soldiers in southern Sudan handed in their guns and uniforms on Monday and will return to their families as part of an ongoing demobilisation exercise supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the agency said." [More]

"[T]he decision by the government of Sudan to bar UN relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland from Darfur is as perverse as it is deplorable. It is not, however, atypical. The government appears to pursue a systematic policy of making life difficult for the NGOs and international organisations working to help the people of Darfur. Visa applications for humanitarian workers take weeks to process. Access to essential fuel is limited. Movement between regions is impeded. The obstruction and harassment is subtle but insidious and seriously affects the ability of the aid agencies to do their job....