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<p align="center"><img src="crisis3.jpg" width="387" height="124" alt="Crisis in Sierra Leone"></p>
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<h6><i><b>Updated 11 May 2000</b></i></h6>
<h3>Update</h3>
<p>Despite the latest outbreak of violence in Sierra Leone, UNICEF continues
to operate in the West African nation, helping its children escape -- and
recover -- from nearly a decade of civil war. These efforts are vital for
a country that has some of the most difficult living conditions in the world.
UNICEF's aim has been to help provide children with the basic services guaranteed
to them by the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- including the right
to a quality education, good healthcare, and basic protection. Without these,
Sierra Leone's children are not only denied their rights, they are deprived
of the chance to develop to their fullest potential. </p>
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<td width="200" valign="top"><img src="w980565d.jpg" width="200" height="300" alt="Copyright © UNICEF/HQ98-0565/Giacomo Pirozzi"></td>
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<td valign="top"><i>Photo: A six-year-old girl sits with her mother at the Waterloo
camp for displaced persons, near Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, in 1998.
Both mother and daughter lost their left hands to rebels' machetes during an
attack six months earlier in the village of Konibaya, near the northern district
of Kabala. It took them three days to receive medical attention following the
attack. Children account for half of all those killed during the conflict, and
of the estimated 20 per cent of the population disabled by the fighting, the
majority are children. </i></td>
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<p><b>The forgotten generation </b></p>
<p>Already Sierra Leone is witnessing the emergence of a Forgotten Generation
-- children who have begun to accept displacement, war and lack of basic services
as a normal part of their lives. The current round of fighting and insecurity
reinforces such hopelessness. Moreover, a return to the recruitment of child
soldiers is possible, despite international efforts to abolish this practice.
A major concern for UNICEF right now is the safety of nearly 1,700 former
child soldiers, 900 of whom are housed in interim care centres. </p>
<p><a href="/statis/Country_1Page154.html">Sierra Leone Country Statistics (UNICEF)</a>.</p>
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