Up to 20,000 children displaced every day by storms, floods and wildfires, UNICEF says
Storms, floods and wildfires led to more than 43 million displacements of children between 2016 and 2021, UNICEF has said.
The UN agency also warned that 100 million more children could be displaced by extreme weather over the next 30 years.
Weather-related disasters, which are becoming more violent and frequent as greenhouse gases cause the Earth’s atmosphere to heat up, uprooted up to 20,000 children a day in 44 countries over the six-year period, with 95% of those from floods, according to the research.
UNICEF said it had measured the number of child displacements rather than the number of children, as the same person could be displaced more than once.
The true number was also likely to be higher as many cases went undocumented.
China and the Philippines were among the countries most affected because of large child populations that were exposed to extreme weather and because early-warning and evacuation measures had improved recently, meaning better reporting.
Relative to the child population size, those on small island states such as Dominica in the Caribbean and Vanuatu in Oceania were the most affected by storms, while children in Somalia and South Sudan in Africa were most affected by floods.
Children ride on a makeshift raft after flooding on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao
Flooding accounted for 40.9 million (95%) of child displacements during the period analysed, in part because of effective reporting and evacuation, while droughts caused 1.3 million internal displacements and wildfires triggered 810,000, with more than a third of those in 2020 alone.
Canada, Israel and the US recorded the most wildfire displacements, while Somalia recorded the most from drought.
UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell said: “It is terrifying for any child when a ferocious wildfire, storm or flood barrels into their community.
“For those who are forced to flee, the fear and impact can be especially devastating, with worry of whether they will return home, resume school, or be forced to move again.”
In a report called Children Displaced In A Changing Climate, UNICEF said that decisions to move may be abrupt, in the face of immediate danger, or the result of an evacuation where lives are saved but at the cost of having to face other dangers.
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Children play at a makeshift evacuation after flash floods in Quezon City in the Philippines
Many children at risk of climate displacement were in countries that were already struggling with conflict and poverty and local authorities were often unable to offer enough resources in support.
Using a risk model developed by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, UNICEF said that flooding from rivers had the potential to displace 96 million children over the next 30 years.
Based on other climate data, they said cyclones and storm surges could displace 10.3 million and 7.2 million children respectively over the same period, although the real number would be likely to be much higher as climate change brought more extreme weather more frequently.
“Moving may have saved their lives, but it’s also very disruptive. As the impacts of climate change escalate, so too will climate-driven movement,” Ms Russell said.
Internally displaced children in Dollow, Somalia
Katherine Nightingale, WaterAid’s global director of international affairs, said: “We have the tools and knowledge to respond to this escalating challenge for children, but we are acting far too slowly.
“We need to strengthen efforts to prepare communities, protect children at risk of displacement, and support those already uprooted.
“The climate crisis is a water crisis, with a staggering 90% of all natural disasters water-related and while all of us are feeling the effects, it’s the world’s most vulnerable who suffer the most.
“From flood defences to drought resistance, the solutions exist. But more investment is needed urgently to develop robust and reliable water, sanitation and hygiene systems which serve as a lifeline for communities who must defend themselves against climate uncertainty on a daily basis.”
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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