"So, does God kill his people?” he asked, with a heavy heart. Nobody was prepared for this and the room fell silent, momentarily. "My mom said he responded to God’s call, that it was God’s timing, but then I know it’s Covid, I hate it,” 10-year-old Dylan (whose last name we will not reveal) went on.

It was May this year when Dylan’s father succumbed to Covid-related complications.

Six months later, Dylan still has many unanswered questions about his beloved father’s passing – and it is unlikely anyone will give him a satisfactory answer. And so he might have to figure that out himself when he comes of age.

"Covid is unfair,” he says, with a small, vulnerable voice.

"I knew death existed because my mom and dad told me that my grandparents had died at old age,” he said. "And I believed that my parents and my brother and I would follow in their footsteps when we grew old.  I used to think that only old people could die.”

"But now Covid has killed my father. Covid is an unfair thing that kills people before it is time,” he says, his father was 47.

Until it snatched his father from him, Dylan only knew Covid-19 as something that had forced his school to close.

 "When our school was closed in 2020, I was not really sad,” he recalls. "They told us at school that it was due to Covid but our teacher explained that it does not affect children, but that we should try to stay safe so that we can keep our families safe as well.”

He adds, "I enjoy cartoons and here was a golden opportunity to stay up late watching.  I was also excited to have my parents around most of the time because of the lockdown.”

And so, to Dylan and his 6-year-old brother, the lockdowns were not a bad thing.

Tragically, however, the pandemic took their beloved father.

He allegedly got infected with Covid-19 while travelling to Goma in DR Congo after travel restrictions had been eased. He had an underlying condition which the family says he was unaware of; a heart problem.

"I think it's so unfair since I've heard that many people have recovered from Covid?”

Children facing ‘a whole slew of problems’

Dylan’s experience is shared by many children in Rwanda and indeed around the world. The virus had officially claimed the lives of up to 1339 people in Rwanda by Wednesday, November 19, according to the nightly updates from the Ministry of Health. Globally, the death toll topped 5 million early this month, almost two years after the pandemic first broke out, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Children are particularly experiencing a whole slew of problems as a result of the pandemic, according to a UNICEF report titled ‘COVID-19 and Children’.

The pandemic, the report says, has pushed more households into poverty, with "families losing their sources of income due to COVID-19”. And, as the global economy has been plunged into a recession, more households are falling into monetary poverty, it adds. "For the poorest families, including those who do not have access to social protection, the situation is dire.

"The global socioeconomic crisis caused by the pandemic could push 142 million more children into monetary poor households in developing countries, according to projections as of November 2020.

"The total number of children living in poor households globally could reach just over 725 million in the absence of any mitigating policies. Nearly two-thirds of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.”

Yet, Covid only exacerbated the challenges that faced many children around the world before the pandemic. From hunger and poverty to homelessness to child labour to dropping out of school to sexual abuse and physical assault.

Millions of children continue to be victims with lasting scars and other far-reaching consequences on their physical and mental health as well as their development.

‘Disproportionate burden’

According to a combined analysis by Save the Children and UNICEF, the Covid-19 epidemic has resulted in an additional 150 million children living in multidimensional poverty – without access to education, health care, housing, nutrition, sanitation, or water.

The two organisations found that the education gap may also be widening now more than ever.

As the pandemic forced school closures in Rwanda and around the world, at least 463 million students were unable to access remote learning, and the majority of them were expected to drop out of school entirely, the two organisations warned.

"As the quality of their food deteriorates and the pandemic and its containment measures generate several shocks, more vulnerable kids are malnourished. Food systems are being disrupted, health and nutrition services are being disrupted, livelihoods are being destroyed, and food security is being threatened.”

Furthermore, Covid restrictions may have prevented about 80 million children under the age of one from obtaining life-saving immunizations in at least 68 countries, they said.

The pandemic also caused a disruption in services related to violence against children in 66 per cent of countries, while Covid-19-related service outages have the potential to reverse decades of HIV-related progress.

Other challenges that have been made worse by the virus include

child abuse/defilement, child labour and teen pregnancies, which  jeopardise children's development.

Notably, these problems impose a disproportionate burden on children living with disabilities, according to another report by UNICEF released earlier this month.

Pledge to ‘leave no child behind’

Indeed, Covid and a host of other challenges facing children globally will be brought to the fore today, November 20, as nations around the world come together to mark the World Children’s Day.

Today’s celebrations will be observed under the theme, A Better Future for Every Child, with events due to take place around the world, including in Rwanda where a national children’s summit will be taking place for the 15th time in the capital Kigali.

The summit, which is expected to attract at least 120 children from around the country, serves as an opportunity for children, children’s rights campaigners, government officials and policymakers, UNICEF representatives and other stakeholders to discuss challenges that face children with a view to finding solutions.

Speaking to The New Times on the event of the World Children’s Day, Julianna Lindsey, the UNICEF Rwanda Representative, underlined the importance of this year's theme.

"As this year’s theme reminds us, we need to continue investing in children so that we will have an empowered next generation.

"Children have gone through some really tough times since the onset of the pandemic over two years ago, and celebrating such important milestones is important to let our children know that we stand firmly with them, and for them,” she said.

She added, "I reiterate UNICEF’s full commitment towards achieving this. Children are the future; let’s support them, leaving no one behind.”

First marked in 1954, the World Children's Day falls on November 20 annually and represents global solidarity in protection and promotion of the rights and wellbeing of children around the world.

Children at Kamabuye Primary School in Bugesera District

Nursery school pupils  at Groupe Scolaire Camp Kigali  on February 7, 2020.

A child reads a Kinyarwanda book at a past reading event. File