children

UN estimates 4.9 million under-5 deaths in 2024 An estimated 4.9 million children died before age five in 2024, United Nations agencies said, underscoring a global slowdown in mortality reduction even before recent aid cuts. The estimate was produced by UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the UN Population Division. The agencies said most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for complications from pre-term birth and diseases such as malaria.…

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian couple and their two young children in the town of Tammun in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said Saturday, as violence flared across the territory and in Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry said four members of one family — a 37-year-old man, a 35-year-old woman and two boys ages 5 and 7 — arrived at the Turkish Public Hospital in Tubas with gunshot wounds after troops opened fire on their vehicle. The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams recovered the…

Suspected drone strike kills at least four children in southern Djibouti Thursday March 5, 2026 DJIBOUTI — At least four children were killed in a suspected drone strike in southern Djibouti, authorities and a local human rights group said Tuesday. The explosion occurred in the Dikhil region of Afar, according to Public Prosecutor Hassan Mohamed Hassan. In a statement, Hassan said a team has been dispatched to investigate the circumstances surrounding the blast and determine its cause. The Djiboutian League for Human Rights…

‘No school, no food’: Drought pushes Bay region children out of class and into Baidoa’s camps BAIDOA, Somalia — At night in a camp on the edge of this bustling regional capital, Hassan Isaq Sabri counts his children as they file into borrowed huts to sleep. The adults bed down outside. By morning, he will borrow 20 liters of water from neighbors and begin the daylong search for a meal — and for a way to keep his four school-age children from slipping further behind. “My children had a good education before,” said Hassan, 55,…

First lady Melania Trump on Monday chaired a United Nations Security Council session on children and education in conflict, a first for a spouse of a sitting world leader and a striking display of the Trump administration’s hands-on approach to global diplomacy by family members. The meeting in New York came two days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel launched attacks on Iran, drawing warnings from the United Nations about the safety of children amid a broader military escalation. UNICEF said the flare-up “marks a…

Dr. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician who led the landmark review of gender healthcare for children in the U.K., said young people have been “weaponised” and misled by social media about the realities of transitioning — comments that arrive as the government publishes draft guidance for schools on supporting gender-questioning pupils. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Cass welcomed the Department for Education’s draft issued earlier this week, while acknowledging “it is impossible for it to be completely…

Families in the remote Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, are mourning eight people killed in a mass shooting Tuesday that tore through a home and a secondary school, claiming the lives of five children and a teacher. Police identified the shooter as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who later died by suicide. Among the victims was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, remembered by her family as “a beautiful soul.” Kylie was killed alongside four other children and a teacher at the town’s secondary school, authorities…

Russian drone strike kills three children and their father in Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials say A Russian drone strike destroyed a home in the town of Bohodukhiv, west of Kharkiv, killing three young children and their father, Ukrainian officials said. The attack came amid one of the largest overnight drone barrages in recent weeks. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 129 drones overnight, adding that air defenses shot down or neutralized 112 of them. It did not specify how many targeted the Kharkiv…

BOGODUKHIV, Ukraine — A Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bogodukhiv killed four people, including three young children, a regional official said. Two one-year-old boys and a two-year-old girl died as a result of the strike, according to Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration. A 34-year-old man in the same house as the children also died from his wounds, he said in a statement posted on Telegram. Synegubov added that a 74-year-old woman was wounded and was receiving medical…

Europe’s scramble to police teen social media use is accelerating, and Ireland is under pressure to decide how far it will go. As Spain, France, Denmark, Greece and Portugal push national age limits — and Australia touts the impact of its world-first under-16s ban — Dublin is drafting a PPS-based age verification system that has already triggered sharp privacy and legal pushback. Spain became the latest EU country to propose restrictions this month. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez vowed to “ban access to social media for minors…