Syria is World’s Worst Country in Recruiting, Using Children in Armed Conflict

 A girl died in a Russian raid that targeted a house in al-Jdayde city in July 2022. (DPA)
A girl died in a Russian raid that targeted a house in al-Jdayde city in July 2022. (DPA)
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Syria is World’s Worst Country in Recruiting, Using Children in Armed Conflict

 A girl died in a Russian raid that targeted a house in al-Jdayde city in July 2022. (DPA)
A girl died in a Russian raid that targeted a house in al-Jdayde city in July 2022. (DPA)

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) commented on a report by the UN Secretary-General on children, considering it a main source of information for violations against children in Syria through cooperation and partnership with the UNICEF’s Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM).

The UN report said Syria is reportedly the worst in the world in terms of recruiting and using children.

The Syrian regime and its allies topped the list of violations related to killing and maiming, while the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came second.

The National Army led the armed opposition factions in recruiting children, followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and the SDF came third.

In June, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres submitted his annual report to the UN Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict in 2021.

The report underlined the trends regarding the impact of armed conflict on children and information on violations committed in several countries, including Syria.

It specified those engaged in the violations against children, namely the recruitment and use of children, the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons in relation to schools and/or hospitals, and the abduction of children.

The UN verified 2,271 grave violations against 2,202 children (1,824 boys, 235 girls, 143 sex unknown). In addition, 74 grave violations against 73 children (58 boys, 14 girls, 1 sex unknown) that occurred in previous years were verified in 2021.

In the report, it is noted that attacks or threats of attacks on community and civic leaders, on human rights defenders and on monitors of violations against children are a cause for concern and a strain on the monitoring capacity.

While Guterres’s report used the term “pro-government air forces,” the SNHR said it believes it would have been better to specifically identify the Russian forces, being the only ally of the Syrian regime with aerial capabilities.

The UN verified the recruitment and use of 1,296 children (1,258 boys, 38 girls), Most of who were used in combat, specifically 1,285 children.

The SNHR noted that this figure is higher than that recorded in Guterres’s previous report, which documented the recruitment and use of 837 children in Syria in 2020.

Monday’s report indicated that all Syrian opposition factions (the Syrian National Army) were responsible for the largest number of cases involving recruitment and use of children in this period, with 596 cases, followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 380.

The SDF came third by recruiting and using 245 children.



Gaza Rescuers Say Nine Children among Dead in Israel Strike on UN Building

A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
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Gaza Rescuers Say Nine Children among Dead in Israel Strike on UN Building

A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP
A crying Palestinian girl stands over the debris of a house hit by an Israeli strike in the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday. - AFP

The Israeli army said it targeted Hamas militants in a strike on a UN building in Jabalia refugee camp Wednesday that Gaza's civil defense agency said killed 19 people, nine of them children.

The army said in a statement that it struck the militants "inside a command and control centre that was being used for coordinating terrorist activity", and separately confirmed to AFP the building housed a UN clinic.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there were also dozens of people wounded in the strike which "targeted an UNRWA building housing a medical clinic".

The army said that "the compound was used by Hamas's Jabalia Battalion to plan terror attacks", and accused Hamas of "exploiting the civilian population as a human shield".

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the "massacre at the UNRWA clinic in Jabalia", calling for "serious international pressure" to halt Israel's widening offensive.

The Islamic Jihad militant group, a Hamas ally, called the bombing a "blatant war crime".

Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for most of the past 18 months.

A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after UNRWA said six of its staff were among the 18 people reported killed.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter -- a charge the Palestinian militant group denies.

Israel resumed major airstrikes on the Palestinian territory on March 18, after talks on next steps in a six-week truce broke down.

It also conducted airstrikes on southern and central Gaza on Wednesday that the civil defense agency said killed at least 15 people, including children, in the city of Khan Yunis and Nuseirat refugee camp.

Since then, at least 1,042 people have been killed in Gaza, according to figures last updated by Gaza's health ministry on Tuesday.

In total, 50,399 people have been killed since the start of the war triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack, according to the ministry's figures, which the United Nations views as reliable.