Aid group says 2 million Syrian children under constant risk of malnutrition and disease
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Children in Syria and refugee camps in neighbouring countries are now facing a "catastrophic situation", a charity report warned.
The report - "Childhood under Fire" - was released by Save the Children, and comes two years after a peaceful uprising in Syria descended into full-scale civil war.
It warns that two million children inside Syria are now suffering from malnutrition, disease and other "horrendous experiences".
"Schools in Syria are shut down. Food is running out. Water is making people very, very sick because it's dirty, due to the sanitation system which has broken down," says Cat Carter, humanitarian communications manager at Save the Children.
She says that children face a difficult journey to flee the fighting and find refuge in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and other neighbouring countries.
"These children, these families, they come across the border," she explains. "It's an incredibly dangerous journey, and then they reach here and they're exhausted. And they're scared, hungry and they're ending up in camps like this."
Ahead of the release of the Save the Children report, Andrew Wander, the charity's emergencies media manager, said it "shows the catastrophic situation" that children are facing within both Syria and refugee camps in surrounding countries.
"They are finding themselves without enough food, enough water inside Syria, facing psychological trauma, and being forced to run for their lives to reach safety in countries surrounding Syria," he said.
Refugee camps along Jordan's border with Syria now offer psychological support programmes to children and their families.
"What we're trying to do is give them a safe place to play, put them back into education, build structure back into their lives so they are able to put the lines back together again and begin to recover from what are really horrendous experiences," Wander explained.