One Million Syrian Children Now Refugees

The number of Syrian children forced to flee their country as refugees has now reached 1 million, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Children make up half of all refugees from the Syria conflict.

UNHCR / S. Baldwin

Syrian refugees Najib and his brother Mohammed play on a swing in an informal settlement outside of Sidon, Lebanon.

Latest figures show that some 740,000 Syrian child refugees are under the age of 11.

UNHCR / S. Baldwin

A young Syrian refugee girl slowly makes her way across a pipe over a pile of rubbish in an informal settlement in Fayda outside of Zahle, Lebanon. The municipality is generally responsible for picking up the rubbish, but the settlements in Fayda are difficult to reach and so residents there burn their trash or throw it in a ditch, which increases the likelihood of diseases spreading.

More than 3,500 children in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have crossed Syria’s borders either unaccompanied or separated from their families.

UNHCR / O. Laban-Mattei

A young Syrian boy carries his bag over the border into Jordan.

UNHCR and UNICEF estimate that more than 2 million children have been internally displaced within Syria.

UNHCR / J. Kohler

Young Syrian refugees, Aysha, 11, and Abdulqader, 6, look through the trash at a dumping site near their house. Their family pays their rent by gathering aluminum, plastics and other items from the trash and selling them to scrap dealers.

Inside Syria, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, some 7,000 children have been killed during the conflict.

UNHCR / O. Laban-Mattei

Portrait of a young Syrian refugee taken in her mobile home in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan.

The story of 8 year-old Aya who is now in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon:

youtu.be / Via UNHCR/UNICEF

Aya: "I love and miss Syria. I used to play with my friends and my sister. I played with them a lot, on our bicycles. We played with our toys too."