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Boys play on a street in the Alawi neighbourhood of Baghdad, Iraq.
In 2012 in Iraq, children and their families continue to struggle with ongoing violence and conflict. Although foreign coalition forces formally withdrew from the country in December 2011, the more than eight-year intervention followed decades of conflict that has destroyed lives, livelihoods and infrastructure, including in Baghdad, the capital. Throughout the country, some 1 million people remain displaced – almost half of whom live in settlements with limited basic services. More than 156,000 people live in settlements in Baghdad. Another 1.5 million Iraqis are refugees in neighbouring countries. Far too many of the country’s 15.7 million children – half of the total population – have had their childhoods defined by violence. Iraq once enjoyed some of the highest indicators for children in the Middle East and North Africa Region; it now suffers from some of the worst. An estimated 100 Iraqi infants die each day, more than 1.5 million under-five children are undernourished, 2.5 million children do not have access to safe water, and 3.5 million lack adequate sanitation. Additionally, some 700,000 children are not enrolled in primary school, hundreds of thousands more drop out before they graduate, and about 800,000 children aged 5–14 work. Although security concerns continue to restrict international assistance efforts severely, UNICEF supports education, child protection and health initiatives, including the country’s first-ever National Immunization Week in 2010. UNICEF also helps teach children about the risks associated with mines and explosive remnants of war and supports relief efforts for vulnerable Iraqi refugees abroad.
© UNICEF/Kamaran Najm
