This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows blood soaked streets and several damaged buses in a parking lot at the site of an attack by twin explosions in Damascus, Syria, Saturday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows blood soaked streets and several damaged buses in a parking lot at the site of an attack by twin explosions in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, March 11, 2017. Twin explosions Saturday near religious shrines frequented by Shiite pilgrims in... (Associated Press) 
 
 BEIRUT (AP) — In Syria, last year was the worst yet for the country's rising generation, with at least 652 children killed in 2016, the United Nations' child relief agency said Monday. 
 
 There was no letup to attacks on schools, hospitals, playgrounds, parks and homes as the Syrian government, its opponents and the allies of both sides showed callous disregard for the laws of war. 
 
 UNICEF said at least 255 children were killed in or near schools last year and 1.7 million youngsters are out of school. One of every three schools in Syria is unusable, some because armed groups occupy them. An additional 2.3 million Syrian children are refugees elsewhere in the Middle East. 
 
 The figures came in a UNICEF report released ahead of the sixth anniversary later this week of the 2011 popular uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule. The uprising, which was part of the Arab Spring movements across the Mideast, quickly escalated into full-blown civil war. 
 
 Children were among the first victims of the government's brutal crackdown. 
 
 On March 15, 2011, a small demonstration broke out in the capital of Damascus and three days later, residents in the southern Syrian city of Daraa marched to demand the release of teenage students arrested for writing anti-government slogans on their school's walls. They were tortured in detention. 
 
 The UNICEF report warns that for Syria's young generation, coping mechanisms and medical care are eroding quickly, driving children into child labor, early marriage and combat. Dozens of children are also dying from preventable diseases. 
 
 A report released a week ago by the international charity Save the Children said Syrian youngsters are showing signs of "toxic stress" that can lead to lifelong health problems, struggles with addiction and mental disorders lasting into adulthood. 
 
 The use of child soldiers is on the rise in Syria, UNICEF also said. At least 851 children were recruited by armed factions last year — more than twice compared to the year before. 
 
 Children across the country are at risk of severe injury while playing around land mines and cluster munitions. Demining operations in opposition-held areas have been severely hampered by inaccessibility to outside experts. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Norwegian Refugee Council said that as the sixth year of Syria's conflict nears its end, 13.5 million people remain in need of aid in dire and deteriorating conditions. Half as many are displaced in their own country, with almost 5 million refugees in neighboring countries where conditions keep getting increasingly desperate. 
 
 "Over the last year in Syria, all parties involved have blocked vital aid supplies and millions have become poorer, hungrier and more isolated from assistance and from the world," said NRC's Mideast director, Carsten Hansen. 
 
 "We join the rest of the international humanitarian community on this milestone of shame to voice outrage at the plight of millions of civilians living in a downward spiral of despair," the organization added. 
 
 It said parties to the conflict continue using siege and starvation as a weapon of war. Around 5 million people remain trapped in areas of active fighting, including almost one million in besieged areas who have no access to sustained humanitarian assistance. 
 
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 Associated Press Writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. ||||| Press release 
 
 Hitting rock bottom: Children's suffering in Syria at its worst - UNICEF 
 
 © UNICEF/UN027725/Al-Issa On 5 August 2016 in Aleppo city in the Syrian Arab Republic, displaced families from Reyadeh and 1070 neighbourhoods take shelter at the Teshreen Kindergarten in western Aleppo city. 
 
 Download multimedia assets from: http://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIFDMAU4 
 
 – Grave violations against children in Syria were the highest on record in 2016, said UNICEF in a grim assessment of the conflict’s impact on children, as the war reaches six years. 
 
 Verified instances of killing, maiming and recruitment of children increased sharply last year in a drastic escalation of violence across the country. 
 
 • At least 652 children were killed – a 20 per cent increase from 2015 – making 2016 the worst year for Syria’s children since the formal verification of child casualties began in 2014. 
 
 • 255 children were killed in or near a school. 
 
 • More than 850 children were recruited to fight in the conflict, more than double the number recruited in 2015. Children are being used and recruited to fight directly on the frontlines and are increasingly taking part in combat roles, including in extreme cases as executioners, suicide bombers or prison guards. 
 
 • There were at least 338 attacks against hospitals and medical personnel . 
 
 
 
 “The depth of suffering is unprecedented. Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis, their lives turned upside down,” said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa speaking from Homs, Syria. “Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future.” 
 
 Challenges in access in several parts of Syria stand in the way of assessing the full scale of children’s suffering and of urgently getting humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable girls and boys. Beyond the bombs, bullets and explosions, children are dying in silence often from diseases that can otherwise be easily prevented. Access to medical care, lifesaving supplies and other basic services remains difficult. 
 
 The most vulnerable among Syria’s children are the 2.8 million in hard-to-reach areas, including 280,000 children living under siege, almost completely cut off from humanitarian aid. 
 
 After six years of war, nearly 6 million children now depend on humanitarian assistance, a twelve-fold increase from 2012. Millions of children have been displaced, some up to seven times. Over 2.3 million children are now living as refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. 
 
 Inside Syria and across its borders, coping mechanisms are eroding, and families are taking extreme measures just to survive, often pushing children into early marriage and child labour. In more than two thirds of households, children are working to support their families, some in extremely harsh conditions unfit even for adults. 
 
 Yet despite the horrors and suffering, there are many remarkable stories of children determined to pursue their hopes and aspirations. Darsy (12), now a refugee in Turkey said: “I want to be a surgeon to help the sick and injured people of Syria. I dream of a Syria without a war so we can go home. I dream of a world without any wars.” 
 
 “We continue to witness the courage of Syria’s children. Many have crossed frontlines just to sit for school exams. They insist on learning, including in underground schools. There is so much more we can and should do to turn the tide for Syria’s children,” said Cappelaere. 
 
 On behalf of the children of Syria, UNICEF is appealing to all parties to the conflict, those who have influence over them, the international community and anyone who cares about children for: 
 
 • An immediate political solution to end the conflict in Syria; 
 
 • An end to all grave violations against children including killing, maiming and recruitment, and attacks on schools and hospitals; 
 
 • The lifting of all sieges and unconditional and sustained access to all children in need, wherever they are in Syria; 
 
 • Providing refugee host governments and communities with sustainable support for vulnerable children, regardless of their status, and 
 
 • Continued financial support for UNICEF’s lifesaving assistance to Syrian children. 
 
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 About UNICEF 
 
 UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. 
 
 For more information about UNICEF and its work for children visit www.unicef.org 
 
 Follow UNICEF on Twitter , Facebook and YouTube 
 
 For more information contact: 
 
 Tamara Kummer, UNICEF Regional Office, Amman +962 797 588 550, tkummer@unicef.org 
 
 Shushan Mebrahtu, UNICEF Damascus, +963 (0) 992 892 864, shmebrahtu@unicef.org 
 
 Salam Abdulmunem, UNICEF Beirut, +961 70 996605, sabdulmunem@unicef.org 
 
 Najwa Mekki, UNICEF New York, +1917 209 1804, nmekki@unicef.org
– The horrific toll civil war is taking on the children of Syria is laid bare in the first major report to focus on the issue. At least 11,420 children, more than a tenth of the conflict's casualties, have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011, including hundreds who were shot dead by snipers or summarily executed, the report from a London think-tank finds. Teenage boys were the most likely to be killed but children as young as just a year old have been tortured and executed, reports the BBC. Bombing and shelling were the cause of most deaths and the report's authors have urged both sides to stop targeting civilians. More than 2.1 million refugees have now fled the conflict and the United Nations, which says this is the worst refugee crisis in a generation, warns that there could be 3.5 million refugees by the end of the year, reports the New York Times. To make matters even worse for internally displaced Syrians, al-Qaeda fighters have been making major gains in northern Syria in recent months, displacing more moderate opposition groups and imposing strict Islamic law in areas under their control, CNN finds. The jihadist groups are even more dangerous in Syria than they were in Iraq, and are "more likely to sustainably control territory, project power around the region, possibly sponsor global terrorist attacks, and catalyze a new generation of jihadist insurrection," a counterterrorism expert warns.