Six-year-old Santo proudly wears a Harvard T-shirt as if he has just been accepted into the elite institution, but its warped lettering, layers of dirt and gaping holes say more about the young refugee’s future.
After fleeing South Sudan’s three-year civil war, Santo and his family have found themselves in the bleak Bidi Bidi settlement in northern Uganda, among hundreds of thousands of people who make up the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
Santo’s father, Godfrey Moro, described desolate conditions for his son: No school, no electricity or running water, a shortage of food and little respite from the sweltering sun.
As Moro spoke, the young boy gnawed at his own hands to keep himself entertained.
“The war has affected these children in so many ways,” Moro said.
South Sudan is known for its “lost boys,” roughly 20,000 orphans who trekked across southern Sudan in the 1980s during the region’s struggle for independence. Three decades later, young Santo is part of another lost generation of children whose new nation, barely older than themselves, has been ripped apart by fighting.
As UN officials warn of ethnic cleansing, their data create a harrowing portrait of innocence lost: More than 200,000 children are at risk of death caused by a lack of food. More than 17,000 have been child soldiers for the government or various rebel groups. And UN officials say they are increasingly worried about children killing themselves in crowded UN-run displacement sites across South Sudan under grim conditions.
South Sudanese officials acknowledge the challenges.

Source: Arab News