Vatican City (CNS) — Without family, a legal identity and adequate education, children uprooted by the ongoing violence in Syria and the Middle East “are at risk of becoming a lost generation,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva. The archbishop noted that “children suffer the brutal consequences” of war and called for a “comprehensive system of protection for children” in these conflict zones. “In camps throughout the Middle East, children constitute approximately half of the refugee population and they are the most vulnerable demographic group,” he said during a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council March 17. Archbishop Tomasi noted the grave situation of these children: Many are separated from their families, live in poverty and have difficulty accessing basic services. In this defenseless state, some are recruited and trained as soldiers or used as human shields. Islamic State militants have “worsened the situation by training and using children as suicide bombers, killing children who belong to different religious and ethnic communities, selling children as slaves in markets, executing large numbers of boys and committing other atrocities,” the archbishop said.