23 January 2014 – Against the backdrop of peace talks on Syria which opened yesterday in Switzerland, senior United Nations humanitarian officials have joined international aid organizations calling for the protection of Syrian children, 11,000 of whom have been killed and 4 million forced to flee their homes over the past three years. “We believe the time has come to urgently focus on the plight of children,” read the open letter signed by 15 high-ranking officials, including UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos; Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF); Antonio Guterres at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR); Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Ertharin Cousin of the World Food Programme (WFP). This has particular resonance in the area of polio, where the disease re-appeared in the country after many years absence and WHO and its partners need full access to all the country’s children in order to stop the disease in its tracks.

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Heads of WHO and UNICEF join call for greater access to Syrian children