The Hidden Toll Of Conflict On Kids
A new study offers a novel way to measure how many children have really died as a result of conflict in Africa.
Over the last two decades, violent conflicts in Africa have likely resulted in the death of as many as 5 million young children — 3 million of them infants. That's the sobering estimate in a new study published Thursday in the journal The Lancet.
It's also a number that breaks new ground because until now, death statistics regarding war have generally been limited to counting the number of people — including combatants and civilians — who are killed by violence. For children that could mean a bomb falls on, lead author of the study and a professor of medicine at Stanford University:
