UN registers 300 unaccompanied Afghan children, some flown to Germany, Qatar
Sep 07, 2021
New York [US], September 7 : The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) dispatched teams to Germany and Qatar to aid efforts by authorities to locate families from some of the 300 unaccompanied children from Afghanistan who were placed on evacuation flights without their parents, Executive Director Henrietta Fore said on Tuesday.
"UNICEF and our partners have registered approximately 300 unaccompanied and separated children evacuated from Afghanistan. We expect this number to rise," Fore said in a statement.
UNICEF teams in Germany and Qatar are providing technical support to governments who have evacuated children and those who are hosting them, Sputnik quoted Fore as saying.
"Right now, our teams are on the ground at the Doha air base in Qatar and the Ramstein air base in Germany, working with authorities and our partners to register unaccompanied children, provide them with appropriate care and protection, and support tracing to bring them back together with their families," Fore added.
UNICEF is also seeking unimpeded humanitarian access to Afghanistan to determine numbers of unaccompanied and separated children among more than a half-million Afghans internally displaced by conflict - most in recent weeks, Fore said.
The agency estimates that about 10 million Afghan children are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.