UNITED NATIONS, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday said that the Syrian conflict risks leaving an entire generation of children scarred for life.
The UNICEF in a report released here Tuesday blamed the negative effect on Syrian children on the unrelenting violence, the massive population displacement, and the damage to infrastructure and essential services.
In the report, UNICEF estimates that two million children have been affected across the region.
The report, marking the two-year point in the Syrian crisis, said that in areas where the fighting is most intense, access to water has fallen by two-thirds, resulting in increased skin and respiratory diseases.
Meanwhile, one-fifth of Syria's schools have been destroyed, damaged, or are being used to shelter displaced families, said the report, adding that children are suffering the trauma of seeing family members and friends killed, while being terrified by the sounds and scenes of conflict, which followed a political crisis that broke out in March 2011.
"As millions of children inside Syria and across the region witness their past and their futures disappear amidst the rubble and destruction of this prolonged conflict, the risk of them becoming a lost generation grows every day," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.
As a result of the two-year crisis in the Middle East country, up to 70,000 people have died, more than one million have fled to neighboring countries, and two million others have been internally displaced.
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