Story highlights
Since 2011, more than 1 million Syrian children have become refugees, the UNHCR says
As many as 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict, leaving many children orphaned
CNN's reporters have been filing harrowing reports on the impact of the war on Syria's children
Video reports show them under fire in Syria, struggling to cope in refugee camps outside
Since conflict broke out in Syria in 2011, the fighting between rebels and soldiers loyal to Bashar al Assad has torn countless families apart with more than a million children now refugees, the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, says.
Scarred by the horrors of war, the refugee children suffer from psychological distress, live alone or separated from their parents, receive no education or are thrown into illegal child labor, it says.
Read more: Syria’s refugee children ‘in crisis’
Throughout the year, CNN’s reporters have been filing harrowing reports on the impact of the war on Syria’s children.
Click on the videos below to hear their stories. Be warned, some of the content is graphic and disturbing.
In October,Atika Shubert described a new low in the violence playing out across Syria. A British doctor told her he believed snipers were targeting pregnant women, sometimes children, and other specific targets, in gruesome “war games.”
A month earlier,Arwa Damon reported on extreme malnutrition in Syria, where children in besieged cities had been cut off from food and medical supplies.
A lack of food had caused anemia, diarrhea and even bone fractures, a doctor tells her.
Mohammed Jamjoom revealed heart-rending images of Syrian child refugees and their grim life in neighboring Lebanon in July.
The flood of Syrian refugees across the border was at first met with a lot of helpful support by Lebanese, he said. But as the number of refugees increased, so did Lebanese resentment towards them.
Fred Pleitgen went inside Syria in June, reporting that children were often those suffering the most.
They had been killed, maimed and displaced, or left just trying to cope.
Nick Paton Walshvisited Jordan’s Zataari refugee camp, flooded by icy storms ahead of expected winter snow, in January .
The United Nations says hundreds of Syrians are arriving daily and about 20% of the camp’s population is aged under four.
More than a year later, Paton Walsh introduced Mais – a 2-year-old orphan – the only survivor of a barrel bomb blast in the city of Aleppo.
The little girl was adopted by a couple living in a basement. All her new family knew about her was that her parents were gone.
Read more: Syria’s traumatized refugee children will be the ones to rebuild their country
