Marwa, an activist advocating for vulnerable communities, describes the terror of growing up during the war in Yemen at an event on protecting children in urban warfare organized by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
She described living under air raids, never going to school without feeling fear, or ever playing outside without her worried mother’s watchful eyes on her.
“When the war broke out, I was 11 years old. Honestly, I don’t remember much other than the fear and the crying,” she said of the conflict, which began some eight years ago.
“Nothing can save you from an air raid. The missile can kill you and all your family while you sleep at home, and there’s nothing you can do to avoid dying under the rubble of your own home,” she said.
Child-specific damage from urban warfare
In a report published late last month, the ICRC seeks to address what it calls a knowledge gap about the child-specific harms caused in increasingly urbanized conflicts – from Gaza to Syria and Ukraine – that the ICRC says could help to better respond to the needs of children in these complex environments.
The aid group said the report is the first holistic study dedicated specifically to children’s experience of urban warfare, drawing on existing literature in addition to dozens of interviews with experts and witnesses. It called the report necessary because an estimated one in six children worldwide will have to endure war as part of their lives.
It points out that children in war scenarios need to be assessed differently, as they are less able than adults to accurately assess risk, are more vulnerable due to their physiology, will experience adverse effects on their health if essential services such as water are disrupted, and drastic undergo mental health changes that affect the rest of their lives.
Their experiences of urban warfare also vary based on criteria such as gender, age, disability and migration status, while children can disrupt their education in many ways, be separated from their families within minutes, become displaced or become victims of detention or even recruitment into armed groups.
The ICRC report also details how economic downturns caused by urban wars can lead children and their families to adopt harmful survival strategies such as child labour, early marriage, or relying on their children for things like checkpoint evasion or searches of debris.
‘The Most Vulnerable’
Another urban war has broken out in Sudan since mid-April, where two generals are fighting for control of the country and many ceasefires have failed to stop the conflict.
The deadly power struggle has led to a significant humanitarian crisis with more than 1.2 million people internally displaced and another 400,000 fleeing to neighboring states.
One such state is Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor, which has seen tens of thousands of refugees – many of them children – cross the border on foot. Some have been placed in camps organized by the UN, but many still live in squalid conditions, unsure of their future.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi witnessed the situation firsthand in Adre, Chad, describing how he saw a mother fleeing war, carrying a boy who looked no older than one, but suffered from developmental problems and severe body contortions .
“There’s no way he’s in the right place to get the kind of help he needs, the kind of help the most vulnerable need. In a place like a makeshift camp in Chad, it’s impossible for them to get the help they need,” he said.
“So there are layers and layers of vulnerability. It’s only getting worse. These kids will keep falling through the cracks and no one knows when the bottom will hit.
According to Basravi, children in Sudan and their families are facing a “generational uprooting”, which has become increasingly frequent and intensive compared to the past decades and are traumatized time and time again.
“Yesterday we saw a child in the camp who lost a leg below the knee in combat last year, and now he has been completely driven from Darfur to Chad,” he said.
He also reported seeing children traumatized by seeing their fathers beaten, their mothers sexually assaulted, and that he was certain they would die at checkpoints. Not to mention the lack of clothing, food and water and the exposure to disease.
“When the children arrive, they are completely shocked and crying all the time,” Basravi said.
‘Permanent state of fear’
Aside from constantly exposing children to physical harm, urban conflicts can have a serious impact on their mental health.
Children in these environments have regularly reported insomnia, stress, anxiety, panic attacks, sadness, bedwetting, fear of loud noises and nightmares, the ICRC report said.
It cited a 2013 survey on the civil war in Syria, which found that 84 percent of adults and almost all children considered the bombing and shelling the main cause of psychological stress in children’s lives.
A 2022 study in Gaza found that children lived in a “perpetual state of fear, worry, sadness and sadness” and that more than half of children in Gaza have contemplated suicide, while three in five reported self-harming .
To improve the situation, the ICRC makes recommendations for states, combat groups and humanitarian actors and for collecting and analyzing data on children in urban war situations.
It calls on states to put in place robust national legal frameworks and higher standards as a policy issue when making recommendations for evacuations and for health and education services and in relation to the detention of children.
It says armed actors should pay specific attention to the protection of children in their urban warfare doctrine, while calling on humanitarian actors to develop a better understanding of the risks and strengthen their capabilities to prevent harm to children and to decrease.