New York City, N.Y., Oct 19, 2016 / 21:04 pm
Progress for the world's children has left out the young victims of war, conflict, and poverty, the Holy See has told the United Nations.
"The dramatic progress made in the reductions in child mortality and increased access to schooling and safe drinking water must strengthen our resolve to bring similar progress to areas in which millions of children still suffer extraordinary indignities each day," Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic nuncio leading the Holy See's permanent observer mission to the U.N., said Oct. 13.
"Millions more children are caught in situations of conflict, trapped in situations of extreme poverty or live in areas of extreme environmental vulnerability. These harrowing situations of children remind us to commit ourselves to fighting the root causes of their sufferings," the nuncio said in an intervention before a committee of the U.N. General Assembly on the promotion and protection of the rights of children.
"The Holy See notes with particular sadness that the primary cause of today's mass displacements of populations is man-made: namely, wars and conflicts," he continued.