News Center – Armed conflicts are having a devastating impact on children worldwide, exposing them to violence, displacement, malnutrition, and deprivation of education and healthcare. Millions of children are growing up in dangerous environments that threaten their lives and futures every day.

The organization Save the Children, in a statement from Berlin, announced that around 520 million children lived in conflict zones across the world last year — an increase of 47 million compared to 2023.

According to the organization’s analysis titled “Stop the War on Children – Security for Whom?”, this figure marks the highest level since studies began in 2005, reflecting the growing impact of wars on children’s lives globally. The findings indicate that one in every five children is affected by armed conflict.

The analysis also revealed that 41,763 grave violations against children were documented in conflict areas last year — a 30% increase from 2023 — marking a new record, according to Save the Children.

More than half of these violations occurred in four major conflict zones: the occupied Palestinian territories, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Somalia. The report also recorded 61 interstate conflicts during the same period, underscoring the expanding reach of violence and its profound toll on childhood worldwide.

In this context, the CEO of Save the Children emphasized that “amid global militarization, protecting children must be at the heart of security policy,” calling it “a scandal” that some countries spend more on weapons than on protecting children in conflict zones.

The organization noted that its analysis was based on data from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and United Nations reports, defining a conflict zone as any area within a 50-kilometer radius of a location where at least one conflict-related event occurred during the year.