Powerful illustration the scale of child deaths in conflict in 2018

Secretary-General António Guterres today (11 Sep) visited a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) installation that displays 3,758 school backpacks as headstones to illustrate the grave scale of child deaths in conflict in 2018 and call for greater protection of children living in conflict.
Accompanied by UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, Guterres walked through the haunting installation in the garden at UN Headquarters in New York.
The installation is meant as a message to world leaders, who will convene for the annual General Assembly. It features rows of backpacks reminiscent of a graveyard, each one representing a senseless loss of a young life to conflict.
According to the 2019 Annual Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict, more than 12,000 children were killed or maimed in conflict zones last year – the highest number since the UN started monitoring and reporting this grave violation.
And these are only verified incidents, with the actual numbers likely to be much higher.
In ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and many more, children pay the heaviest price of war.
The vast majority of child casualties in armed conflict are caused by the continued and widespread use of explosive weapons, such as airstrikes, landmines and cluster munitions.
(Raw footage)
Screenshot Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider