Children biggest victim of violence in Iraq over past year: UN

The UN says a year of sustained violence across Iraq has hit children hardest, warning that there has been a 75 percent increase in crimes against children in the Arab country.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday that violence against the Iraqi children included killing and maiming, abduction, recruitment as soldiers, sexual violence, attacks against schools and denial of access to basic items.

Briefing the press in Geneva from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, UNICEF Acting Representative in Iraq Colin MacInnes said that more than 650,000 children had received no schooling whatsoever in the 2014-15 school year, adding that over three million did not attend a regular school cycle as well.

“For those children not in school and who did not have services, the situation continued to worsen,” he said, adding that the speed and scope of the crisis has been very severe.

The UN official said that the violent crisis in Iraq over the past year has affected more than eight million people, adding that the situation for children in particular was desperate.