In an angry world ... suffer the children.

• Position: Includes related article on UNICEF - United Nations developments

They are the innocent victims of some 40 raging conflicts in the world - approximately 1.5 million children killed, more than 4 million disabled, 5 million in refugee camps and 12 million homeless.

A recent United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) exhibition, "No War Anymore", held in the public lobby at UN Headquarters in New York, expressed the thoughts in words, as well as in simple drawings, of some of these children who live in terrifying conditions. Children - from Somalia, Cambodia, Mozambique, the former Yugoslavia and other places where war threatens young lives - have touchingly made known their longing for peace.

Wrote one child whose words were on exhibit for thousands to see: "Some people say you have to pay a lot for peace. I don't think it costs anything."

"Peace", noted another young writer, "is when it is real quiet and you can hear it when there is peace."

"Peace is seeing friends again", one child wrote simply.

For those who go to bed each night in peaceful surroundings, it can be difficult to even try to imagine the feelings of a child from Afghanistan who wrote: "Peace means you can come home ... that you no longer have to hide and be afraid."

And there are youngsters who do not even understand the meaning of the word peace. "I have never seen peace ... I don't know what peace is", wrote a child from Mozambique.

The exhibition underscored the grim reality that in many of today's armed conflicts, more children and women die than soldiers. Food is used as a weapon, and freedom from suffering remains an elusive dream.

According to the organizers, the overall intent of the exhibit was to show young people, as well as adults, that wars are never a solution for any nation, and to demonstrate the urgent necessity for children of all countries to learn how to settle differences, conflicts and tensions peacefully, through dialogue and tolerance.

That the exhibition struck its mark was underscored by the largest contributions any UNICEF exhibit has ever received. One volunteer was stunned by the generosity of a woman who stuffed two crisp hundred-dollar bills into the collection box after viewing the exhibit.

A poignant message from a Cambodian child brought to light the fact that children mature early in war situations. Displayed in a section labelled "Hidden Wounds", it read: "Sometimes I want to cry. But I don't want other children to see it. So I cry only when it rains."

An Ethiopian child's thoughts under "Learning to Cope"...