Press releases

5th February 2018 - UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, said: “In this dark month of January, conflicts and violence in the Middle East and North Africa have once again taken a devastating toll on children. They were killed in ongoing conflicts, suicide attacks, or frozen to death as they fled active warzones.

25 January 2018 - Democratic Republic of the Congo: Violence in Tanganyika and South Kivu fuels one of the world's worst displacement crises for children.

19 January 2018 – "I have just spent two days in South Sudan where I saw firsthand how four years of a man-made conflict have left children sick, hungry and on the brink of death."

16 January 2018 – More than 3 million children were born in Yemen since the escalation in violence in March 2015 according to a Unicef report.

14 January 2018 – "At a time when most parents are filled with new year’s hope for their children’s future, mothers and fathers in Syria are left grieving for the children they have lost."

29 December 2017 – "We have passed the grim milestone of 1,000 days of war in Yemen. As violence has escalated in recent days, children and families are yet again being killed in attacks and bombardments."

28 December 2017 – Children in conflict zones around the world have come under attack at a shocking scale throughout the year.

21 December 2017 - Eastern Ukraine is now one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth, endangering 220,000 children who live, play and go to and from school in areas littered with landmines, unexploded ordnance and other deadly explosive remnants of war

20 December 2017 – A UNICEF-chartered plane landed today in Sana’a and delivered nearly 6 million doses of essential vaccines to protect millions of children at risk of preventable diseases, including the current diphtheria outbreak that has reportedly infected over 300 people and killed 35. Most diphtheria cases and deaths are in children.

19 December, 2017 – Recent restrictions on imports of fuel to Yemen have sparked critical shortages and price hikes across the country, severely impacting access to safe water and other vital services for children including health care and sanitation. The cuts are the latest challenge to containing Yemen’s acute watery diarrhea and cholera outbreak. Yemen has for decades struggled with extreme water scarcity.

12 December 2017 — The Government of Bangladesh, with the support of UNICEF, the World Health Organization and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, today launched  a vaccination campaign against diphtheria and other preventable diseases for all Rohingya children aged 6 weeks to 6 years living in 12 camps and temporary settlements near the Myanmar border.

12 December 2017 - At least 400,000 children under five in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and could die in 2018 if they are not urgently reached with lifesaving health and nutrition interventions

11 December 2017 – Despite children’s massive online presence – 1 in 3 internet users worldwide is a child – too little is done to protect them from the perils of the digital world and to increase their access to safe online content, UNICEF said in its annual flagship report released today. 

10 December 2017 – Continuing violence across East Ghouta, some 10km outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, has reportedly led to the closure of most schools in the area over the past month and stranded scores of children in need of medical evacuation.

6 December 2017 – Almost 17 million babies under the age of one live in areas where air pollution is at least six times higher than international limits, causing them to breathe toxic air and potentially putting their brain development at risk, according to a new UNICEF paper released today.

20 November 2017 – Today, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham made a surprise visit to Kentish Town C of E Primary School in London to celebrate World Children’s Day.

20 November 2017 - Despite global progress, 1 in 12 children worldwide live in countries where their prospects today are worse than those of their parents, according to a UNICEF analysis conducted for World Children’s Day.

20 November 2017 - Children in the UK feel more disenfranchised than their peers worldwide and are less likely to trust those in power to make good decisions for children, according to new research published by UNICEF to mark World Children’s Day.

10 November 2017 – An increase in the number of suspected measles cases among the newly arrived Rohingya and their host communities in southern Bangladesh has prompted the Government and UN partners to step up immunization efforts in overcrowded camps and makeshift shelters close to the border with Myanmar.

3 November 2017 – Preliminary data from a nutrition assessment conducted last week at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, shows a 7.5 per cent prevalence of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition – a rate double that seen among Rohingya child refugees in May 2017, UNICEF said today.