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  • Title: [Fifteen million young children at the mercy of apartheid].
    Journal: Jeune Afr; 1988 Mar 16; (1419):24-5. PubMed ID: 12281073.
    Abstract:
    The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) organized a conference in March 1988 in Harare, Zimbabwe, to publicize the plight of the 15 million children of South Africa and the 9 neighboring countries of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Children of the region have been imprisoned, tortured, kidnapped and assassinated, and have suffered all the atrocities of war. Of the 3.5 million children born each year in the 9 countries neighboring South Africa, 750,000 die before the age of 5 years. War is the cause of much of the mortality, and South Africa is at the center of the war. According to the UNICEF spokesperson, children have been kidnapped and taught to kill. Between 1980-86, 1/2 million children under 5 have died in Angola and Mozambique because of the war. Angola and Mozambique are undoubtedly the 2 "front-line" countries most touched by the aggression of South Africa. The infant mortality rate in the 2 countries the highest in the world. Victims of the ware include civilians of all types, not just military. Children are the most several affected by pillaging and burning of stores and supplies, destruction of villages, poisoning of water supplies, and cutting of communication links. In 1985, 40% of schools were destroyed, and 20% of children were forced to abandon their educations. About 8 million Angolans and Mozambicans, or 1/2 the rural population of the 2 countries, have been forced to flee and reduced to wandering. Among them are almost 4 million children. Serious psychological problems resulting from the upheaval and war have affected many of the children. The economic loss resulting from South Africa's aggression has been estimated at $30 billion between 1980-86 in the southern African countries. In South Africa itself, rigid censorship assures that little word escapes of the atrocities committed against children, but the rare news that filters out describes tortures so horrible that they recall the Nazi regime.
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