《Lebanese Nights 黎巴嫩的夜》- Mazikana Elissa and Chris de Brugh


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    Wednesday 02 August 2006  為什麼大量黎巴嫩兒童遇害

Huge numbers of children are being killed, injured or displaced in south Lebanon. Why are so many suffering in this conflict? Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports.
Whole Story: http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/63/21545

   "..... What is obvious to everyone covering this conflict is that children are bearing the brunt of it. The few official figures collated so
far seem to support this. Unicef says that 37 of the 60 dead in Qana on Sunday were children, and everywhere you go, it seems that
it is the children who are being killed, injured and displaced. Yesterday the Lebanese government said that of the 828 of its civilians
killed in the conflict so far, around 35% have been children - that's around 290. Unicef also estimates that about a third of the dead
have been children, although it bases that figure on the fact that an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population are children, rather than
any actual count of the dead. There are no official figures yet for the number of wounded children, but they will certainly exceed the
number killed; as for those displaced, Unicef says that 45% of the estimated 900,000 Lebanese to have fled their homes are children.

    Aid agencies believe that the reason children are suffering so much in this conflict is because of the big families that are traditional
in south Lebanon. "You are not talking about nuclear families, you are talking about families huddling together with four, five or six
children. Inevitably, a high percentage of children are killed," says Anis Salem, a Unicef spokesman. "We estimate that before Qana,
30% of the deaths were children, but it is a very fluid situation and that figure can quickly become redundant."

    It is not just a matter of many children huddled together, of course: with numbers come all sorts of problems. If an air raid is
coming, and you are running, how many children can you pick up and carry with you? How many do you have to leave behind?

    Children often suffer most in wars like this - wars in which civilians suffer heavy casualties. They are weaker, they may be too small
to run or walk, they may suffer more on long journeys by foot. And as Amelia Bookstein, head of humanitarian policy at Save the
Children, points out: "Children who are wounded, separated from their families, or traumatised, may be too frightened or unable to
flee their homes." ..........


   

   

     

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