Some 300 children drowned trying to reach Europe so far this year [according to UNICEF] - Al Jazeera
At least 289 children are known to have died at sea in the first six months of this year while attempting to reach Europe, according to the United Nations children agency (UNICEF).
The figure is nearly double the number recorded in the first half of 2022, the UNICEF said on Friday, adding that the children made the perilous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea driven by conflict and climate change.
Verena Knaus, the UNICEF’s global lead on migration and displacement, said the true figures were likely to be higher as many shipwrecks on the Central Mediterranean leave no survivors or go unrecorded.
An estimated 11,600 children made the crossing in the first six months of 2023 – nearly twice as many as in the same period in 2022.
In a news briefing at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Knaus said that in the first three months of this year, 3,300 children – 71 percent of all children arriving to Europe via the central route – were recorded as unaccompanied or separated.
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