In wars around the globe, thousands of children were front-line targets, used as human shields and recruited to fight this year on “a shocking scale,” Unicef said on Thursday. The United Nations agency warned against normalizing the brutality, a sentiment it has echoed in reports year after year.

Our correspondents have followed the plight of children caught up in war, as well as those suffering from the fall out of these conflicts. Here is a selection of their stories, from the countries outlined in Unicef’s report.

Indiscriminate Violence in Afghanistan

At least 700 children were killed in the first nine months of the year in Afghanistan, Unicef said. As violence in civilian populated areas of the country intensified, children were often caught in the crossfire.