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Clashes at Lebanon-Israel Border Disrupts Education of Children

(FILES) The entrance of a public school is decorated with mural paintings, in Beirut on September 21, 2023. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
(FILES) The entrance of a public school is decorated with mural paintings, in Beirut on September 21, 2023. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
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Clashes at Lebanon-Israel Border Disrupts Education of Children

(FILES) The entrance of a public school is decorated with mural paintings, in Beirut on September 21, 2023. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
(FILES) The entrance of a public school is decorated with mural paintings, in Beirut on September 21, 2023. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)

Clashes on Lebanon’s southern border against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war have exacerbated an education crisis in country that has been in the throes of a major economic meltdown for the past four years, UNICEF said Wednesday.

A survey of Lebanese as well as Syrian and Palestinian refugee households living in Lebanon conducted by the UN agency in November found that 26% of households had school-aged children who were not attending school, up from 18% in April.

Syrians reported the highest prevalence of children out of school, at 52% of households, followed by Lebanese at 13% and Palestinians at 7%.

While the “cost of education materials” was the most-cited reason, UNICEF said, thousands of children were also out of education due to disruptions related to ongoing fighting on the border between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

The clashes have killed about 130 people in Lebanon, including 17 civilians, according to a tally by The Associated Press, and have displaced nearly 59,000, according to the International Organization for Migration.

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More Than 4 Million Refugees Have Fled Sudan Civil War, UN Says 

Displaced people ride a an animal-drawn cart, following Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on the Zamzam displacement camp, in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced people ride a an animal-drawn cart, following Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on the Zamzam displacement camp, in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 15, 2025. (Reuters)
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More Than 4 Million Refugees Have Fled Sudan Civil War, UN Says 

Displaced people ride a an animal-drawn cart, following Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on the Zamzam displacement camp, in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced people ride a an animal-drawn cart, following Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on the Zamzam displacement camp, in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 15, 2025. (Reuters)

The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of its civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, UN refugee agency officials said on Tuesday, adding that many survivors faced inadequate shelter due to funding shortages.

"Now in its third year, the 4 million people is a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis at the moment," UN refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing.

"If the conflict continues in Sudan, thousands more people, we expect thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake," she said.

Sudan, which erupted in violence in April 2023, shares borders with seven countries: Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya.

More than 800,000 of the refugees have arrived in Chad, where their shelter conditions are dire due to funding shortages, with only 14% of funding appeals met, UNHCR's Dossou Patrice Ahouansou told the same briefing.

"This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity. This is a crisis of ... protection based on the violence that refugees are reporting," he said.

Many of those fleeing reported surviving terror and violence, he added, describing meeting a seven-year-old girl in Chad who was hurt in an attack on her home in Sudan's Zamzam displacement camp that killed her father and two brothers and had to have her leg amputated during her escape. Her mother had been killed in an earlier attack, he said.

Other refugees told stories of armed groups taking their horses and donkeys and forcing adults to draw their own family members by cart as they fled, he said.