The world has devoted a great deal of diplomatic energy to securing Syria 's chemical weapons . It has yet to do the same for securing Syria 's children . Their future is as important for international security and stability , even if the consequences of inaction will take far longer to be seen and felt . The war in Syria between the government of Bashar al-Assad and forces opposed to him has ground on for more than two years and claims new victims each day . More than 100,000 have been killed . Starvation has become a gruesome reality , with a religious leader now saying it is OK to eat cats and dogs given the lack of much of anything else . Polio , likely brought by foreign fighters , has resurfaced to claim tiny victims younger than 2 . In the past two weeks , barrel bombs -- drums filled with shrapnel and explosives -- are reported to have killed more than 500 people in the city of Aleppo . According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights , a UK-based group with links to Syrian opposition , children accounted for more than 150 of the dead . Refugees fleeing the conflict , most to Syria 's overwhelmed neighbors Jordan and Lebanon , top a whopping 2 million . Some U.N. officials expect that number to climb as high as 4 million in 2014 . More than 1.1 million of these refugees are younger than 18 . Indeed , Syria 's youngest citizens are paying dearly for a war they did not create , one that is laying waste to their present and their future . Three out of four Syrian children `` have lost a close friend or family member in their country 's ongoing conflict '' and `` many have witnessed violence , '' notes the International Rescue Committee . Charities such as IRC and Mercy Corps working with Syria 's children tell of young people isolated , lonely and struggling with the impossible task of coming to terms with all that they have seen and lost . `` If we do not act quickly , a generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war , '' U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in November when releasing a report on the grim future facing Syria 's children . `` A grave consequence of the conflict is that a generation is growing up without a formal education , '' the report said . `` More than half of all school-aged Syrian children in Jordan and Lebanon are not in school . In Lebanon , it is estimated that some 200,000 school-aged Syrian refugee children could remain out of school at the end of the year . '' They join 25 million kids of primary-school-age around the world out of school because of war . These numbers matter and well beyond Syria 's borders . As U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has often noted , security and education are bound together : Low educational attainment is among the strongest predictors of violence . Anyone hoping for a safer , more secure world had better start with educating children . And yet until now , the international community 's reaction to the escalating death count and the rising number of hungry , homeless and displaced children has fallen somewhere between a shrug and a sigh . Although U.N. agencies have released a slew of dire warnings about the situation 's urgency and its gravity , it is unclear anyone is listening , let alone ready to act to change the calculus on the ground . In September , a round of feverish and focused diplomacy unfolded between Russia and the United States to reach a deal with the Assad regime on its chemical weapons . No nations have engaged in such fully concentrated diplomacy to open and secure humanitarian corridors and bring supplies to cities being starved and cut off from the rest of the world -- and to make sure Syria 's children do n't go hungry . Although chemical weapons may be close to being secured , conventional weapons face no such limitations and are being used to kill , injure and maim with impunity . This leaves children to pay the price . And so will the rest of us , eventually , if nothing is done to help a lost generation find a way to a more secure future .
Gayle Lemmon : Nations have tried to secure Syria 's chemical weapons but not to help children . Lemmon : Children suffer from starvation and polio , killed by airstrikes and bombs . She says chemical weapons close to being secured , but not conventional weapons . Children pay the price , she says . The world has turned its back on them .