Two toddlers sit outside their family tent at Atmeh refugee camp in the northern Syrian province of Idlib last month.  (Hussein Malla / Associated Press / February 19, 2013)

A whole generation of Syrian children risks being lost amid the country's spiralling civil war, the UN children's agency cautioned Tuesday, saying it was in urgent need of funds to address the crisis. UNICEF spokesman Patrick McCormick told reporters that the scarring of an entire generation could have dire consequences beyond Syria's borders, in a fragile region prone to violence and civil strife. The Geneva-based agency pointed out that nearly half of the four million in dire need of aid inside Syria are under the age of 18, and 530,000 of them are children below the age of five. The agency warned that without more funds, it would soon need to scale back things like providing clean water, measles and polio vaccinations, life-saving neo-natal care and emergency medical care. One in five schools has been destroyed, damaged or converted into a shelter, disrupting education for hundreds of thousands.