UNICEF launches largest-ever appeal to reach over 60 mln children worldwide

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday launched its largest-ever appeal for 3.1 billion U.S. dollars to reach 62 million at risk children affected by humanitarian crises worldwide.

Growing numbers of children are victims of increasingly complex and destructive conflicts, natural disasters and other emergencies including the Ebola epidemic, which expose them to violence, hunger, disease and abuse.

As a result, the UN organization, which focuses on protecting and promoting children's well-being, requires increasingly more resources to address the problem, it said.

Some one in ten children worldwide currently live in countries affected by armed conflicts, UNICEF stressed.

Afshan Khan, UNICEF's director of emergency programs, told reporters that children across the globe were facing a new generation of humanitarian crises, from deadly natural disasters, to brutal conflicts, to fast-spreading epidemics, and their lives were being torn apart.

The biggest portion of UNICEF's latest fund raising appeal was for Syria and the sub-region, with 903 million U.S. dollars being sought to protect jeopardized children, and deliver life-saving assistance like immunizations, safe water and sanitation, and education.

UNICEF was also calling for 500 million U.S. dollars to accelerate its work in the heart of Ebola-affected communities, which would be used to ramp up efforts to rapidly isolate and treat every case, prevent further outbreaks, and continue to promote healthy behaviors to impede the spread of the disease.

Meanwhile, the UN agency called for 32.45 million U.S. dollars to deal with the fallout from the Ukraine conflict which has affected some 1.7 million children.

In addition, the appeal also included resources for "hugely under-funded and forgotten crises" where children were in desperate need, including those in Afghanistan, Palestine and Niger, said UNICEF. Enditem