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World News

Pray for children displaced in home countries, charity says

by Eno Adeogun

Published on Wednesday to coincide with World Refugee Day, World Vision's new report, On the Road to Somewhere, reveals that of the 28 million children who were forced to flee their homes due to conflict and disasters in 2016, more than 16 million were displaced in their own countries.

Erica Hall, World Vision's technical policy lead for child protection, told Premier why there isn't as much focus on internally displaced children.

 

"They're less visible. It's so much easier to see and to think about the children who are turning up on the shores of Europe.

"Whereas children who are in the Democratic Republic of Congo for example - they've had cycles of displacement for their entire lives."

The Christian charity is calling on the governments of the UK and other wealthy countries to provide more funding for the vulnerable group.

World Vision

At least 3,270 grave violations against children including recruitment as child soldiers, sexual violence and destruction of schools were recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017 alone - a 245 per cent increase since 2015.

In war-torn South Sudan where seven million people are internally displaced as a result of conflict, 60 per cent are children.

Highlighting the specific prayers internally displaced children need, Hall explained: "Pray that they're not forgotten and pray that we can see them as individuals - not as statistics, not as this big mass of refugees.

World Vision
12/03/2018 Displaced children in Afghanistan are happy to have received bags, shampoo, soap, sweaters, toys, body wash and more from World Vision's GIK program. Golchahra (in green) and her mother support their family financially by shelling pistachios in the market.

"But we're talking about individual children who are just trying to get on with their lives."

According to latest UN statistics, the number of displaced people around the world has reached a record high of 68.5 million in the past year and only 100,000 refugees were resettled by the international community in 2017.

Listen to Erica Hall speaking with Premier's Eno Adeogun:

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