22 April 2014 - It was vital for those in positions of command and leadership to keep children out of harm’s way, UNICEF said in a press release issued in Juba today.

“Those who survived horrendous violence now face the very real risk of fatal waterborne disease outbreak”, said UNICEF’s Representative in South Sudan, Jonathan Veitch. “Children have endured unspeakable violence – they must not continue to suffer in places that should provide safety.”

One such child is a three-year-old boy who was handed over to the Mission’s Child Protection officers by doctors at the Bentiu hospital, as UNMISS peacekeepers extracted civilians from different locations in the Unity State capital Bentiu last week.

Nobody seemed to know how the unaccompanied child with a bullet wound in his back had arrived at the hospital. He only knew one of his names, “Kiir” and didn’t know his parents’ names or their whereabouts.

“Working with other humanitarian partners, we have been looking after Kiir here in the Mission’s compound,” said UNMISS Child Protection Officer Erasmus Migyikra. “Now he is much better so we are looking into getting him a foster family in the protection site, where he can also be with other children.”

The boy’s physical wounds were healing, Mr. Migyikra said, but the toll of the conflict on the boy was very clear during a rocket attack at the UNMISS base last week.

“We were taking a walk when we heard the deafening sound,” he recounted. “Even before I could bend over to shield him, Kiir was lying flat on the ground, covering his head. He is just three years old!”

Aingo Razafy, UNICEF Chief of Field Service in the state, described the toll of the conflict on children as “catastrophic”.

“Right now, we are attending to their more physical needs,” he said. “At some point, we are going to have to deal with psychosocial care for them.”

According to humanitarian partners, more than half of the 22,000 displaced people seeking shelter in the UNMISS base in Bentiu are children. In the last week alone, they received reports of at least 100 children who had arrived unaccompanied at the base or were missing.

“Eight thousand children at the base are of school-going age,” said Mr. Razafy, noting that informal education at the base had been stopped with the new wave of violence as aid agencies made efforts to respond to other immediate needs of arriving civilians.

“As a primary first response over the past two weeks, our focus is to make sure that the children stay alive and are healthy, and to prevent disease outbreaks,” said UNICEF Deputy Representative in South Sudan Ettie Higgins during her visit to Bentiu on 20 April.

Such activities included drilling more boreholes to increase water supply, digging more latrines, ensuring that all children entering the protection site receive essential vaccinations, screening for malnutrition and providing high energy foods to prevent malnutrition, she added.

Humanitarian partners also expressed concerns over continued sightings of children in military uniforms, which set back the progress South Sudan had made before December 2013 to stop recruitment of children into armed forces.