UN refugee agency fears for Darfur children

GENEVA, June 27 (Reuters) – The world was not paying enough attention to the plight of children in Sudan’s west Darfur, where many were forced to join armed groups or were separated from their families, the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday.

Sudanese displaced children gather outside their tents in Sudan’s southern Darfur region in 2004. (AFP) .

“The whole issue of child protection is one that deserves more focus,” said Erika Feller, director of international protection at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

She said that international awareness was high about the continuing problems of sexual violence and rape facing women and female children amongst the refugee populations forced to flee violence in the vast western region of Sudan.

But less was known about the other dangers facing children.

“I met mothers who told me that their children had been abducted and that they had not seen them for months,” she told a news conference following her return from the region.

“Others told me of forced recruitment … about problems associated with the traumas of children who had lost their families,” she added.

International donors had been generous when it came to providing food or shelter for the some two million people in Darfur forced to flee their homes to escape civil war.

But the UNHCR’s protection activities in west Darfur were seriously underfunded, with only some 10 percent raised of the $31 million (17 million pounds) sought for 2005, she said.

Without more cash, the UNHCR would be unable to carry out plans to send more staff into outlying areas where their very presence often acted as a deterrent to violence, she added.