- Sudan, Uganda and Congo are the world's three most dangerous places for children due to wars that have brought death, disease and displacement to millions, a Reuters AlertNet poll showed on Tuesday.
Around half of respondents picked Sudan as one of their three choices, with many singling out the troubled western region of Darfur. Some 1.8 million children have been affected by a three-year conflict in Darfur, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), where they risk being recruited to fight and are especially vulnerable to disease and malnutrition.
"It is a traumatised population and you can see it in the children's faces," said Hollywood actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow, who last month visited camps for some of the 2.5 million displaced by Darfur's war.
"Everyone has lost family, seen villages burn, seen relatives raped, been raped."
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres - who selected Congo, Uganda and the Sudan/Chad border, where some 200,000 refugees from Darfur eke out an existence - pointed to the physical and psychological consequences of living in crowded, underfunded camps "which are not conducive for a healthy child development".
In southern Sudan, children also suffer the effects of low-level violence, poverty and a lack of basic services. The region is struggling to recover from a 21-year civil war with the north that killed 2 million people, as 600,000 refugees forced to flee the country trickle home.
AlertNet, a humanitarian news website run by Reuters Foundation, asked 112 aid experts and journalists to highlight the world's most dangerous places for children.
After Sudan, they chose northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Somalia, India, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Myanmar - with the top three clearly ahead.
More than 2 million children worldwide have died as a direct result of armed conflict in the past decade, and about 20 million have been forced to flee their homes, according to UNICEF. More than a million have been orphaned or separated from their families.
CHILD SOLDIERS"The most dangerous places are those conflict zones where children are actively recruited into the fighting forces, and the current worst offender...is Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army," said Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group think tank.
"Its recruiting, indoctrination and battle tactics have left countless children either dead, or dreadfully physically or mentally scarred."
During its brutal, two-decade insurgency, the cult-like rebel group has kidnapped up to 25,000 children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves. Each evening about the same number of child "night commuters" trudge into towns to avoid abduction.
"What makes it even more dangerous is that no one is hearing about it... The long-standing and invisible nature of the situation has led to an entire generation of children growing up in camps," said Krista Threefoot of aid group Catholic Relief Services.
Military recruitment is also a major risk for children in Congo, as highlighted by former BBC war correspondent Martin Bell. "Despite partial demobilisation, (Congo) is believed to have more child soldiers than any other country in the world," he said.
He also pointed out that, here and in his other choices of Darfur and Iraq, poor security means large proportions of the population are beyond the reach of the aid agencies.
Congo's first free elections in 40 years, set for the end of July, are meant to draw a line under its 1998-2003 war that killed millions, but conflict still simmers in the lawless east, where disease, hunger and violence kill about 1,200 a day.
"Women and children are regularly targeted by illegal and armed militias and other predators, who perpetrate unacceptable acts of violence and rape against them," said U.N. aid chief Jan Egeland, who also selected northern Uganda and Afghanistan.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMAThe poll underlined the psychological trauma experienced by children caught up in violence.
"Children (in Iraq) may fear both American soldiers and insurgents; they fear being drummed out of their home if they're from the wrong sect," said Lindsey Hilsum, international editor for Britain's Channel 4 News. "They have no security and no sense of what tomorrow may bring."
Respondents who chose the Palestinian territories cited the long-term strain of living in a place with limited freedom of movement and access to basic services.
"A key concern, especially in Palestine, is that protracted emergencies lead to a lack of opportunities in later life adding to boredom and a sense of hopelessness," said Amalia Fawcett, a policy analyst for World Vision New Zealand.
Somalia and Afghanistan, where warlords are battling for political power, featured due to deteriorating security and widespread poverty.
In 11 provinces in Afghanistan, more than four-fifths of girls do not attend school. More than a quarter of children in Afghanistan and a fifth of children in Somalia die before their fifth birthday.
Journalist Aidan Hartley and humanitarian consultant Tony Vaux also chose Somalia due to the widespread practice of female genital mutilation.
FORCED TO WORKMany children living in poverty are forced to work to support themselves and their families.
A large proportion of the world's 218 million child workers are in India, which came sixth in the poll.
"An estimated 60 to 115 million children are classified as working children - the highest number in the world," said Anuradha Mittal, director of the Oakland Institute think tank.
"Deprived of their childhoods, most have never seen the inside of a school."
U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Wendy Chamberlin highlighted the case of Nepali girls who are trafficked to Indian cities, including Mumbai and Calcutta, for sex work. "They are really trapped," she said.
In Russia's breakaway Chechnya republic, fighting has displaced at least 95,000 people and UNICEF says 99 percent of residents live below the official Russian poverty line.
Child soldiers and forced labour were key reasons why respondents picked Myanmar, where the military junta is accused of conscripting tens of thousands of children to fight.
Egeland called on the international community to boost efforts to tackle children's issues around the world. "We must do more to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, particularly as they relate to children, who are, of course, our future," he said.
Read more:- FACTFILE: The world's 10 most dangerous places for children
- Sex abuse, work and war deny childhood to tens of millions
- CONGO CASE STUDY: Aimerance, girl soldier
- UGANDA CASE STUDY: Mary's sisters, 'night commuters'
- SUDAN CASE STUDY: Mohammed, displaced in Darfur
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