Record number of children killed in Syria last year: UN

Opposition not ready to attend peace talks

LONDON, March 13, (Agencies): A record number of children were killed in Syria last year, more than a third of them in or near a school, the UN children’s agency said ahead of the sixth anniversary of the war.

More than 850 children were also recruited to fight — more than double the number in 2015 — with some used as executioners and suicide bombers, UNICEF said.

“The depth of suffering is unprecedented. Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis,” the agency’s regional director Geert Cappelaere said in a statement from Homs in Syria.

“Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future.”

At least 652 children were killed last year, up by 20 percent from 2015, the agency said.

The figures — collected since 2014 — only represent formally verified casualties, meaning the true toll could be higher.

Attacks

UNICEF also said there were at least 338 attacks against hospitals and medical personnel last year.

Half of Syria’s pre-war population has been uprooted in the conflict whose six-year anniversary falls on March 15.

Around 6.5 million people are displaced within Syria and nearly 5 million have sought shelter in neighbouring countries where conditions are getting increasingly desperate.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said nearly one million were trapped in besieged areas inside Syria with almost no aid.

It said siege and starvation continued to be used as weapons of war and called for an immediate end to all obstacles preventing civilians accessing aid.

“Over the last year in Syria all parties involved have blocked vital aid supplies and millions have become poorer, hungrier and more isolated from assistance and from the world,” NRC’s Middle East director Carsten Hansen said in a statement.

“We join the rest of the international humanitarian community on this milestone of shame to voice outrage at the plight of millions of civilians living in a downward spiral of despair.”

UNICEF said many children were also dying from preventable diseases with the fighting making it difficult to access medical care and lifesaving supplies.

The agency added that Syrian families across the region were taking extreme measures to survive, often forcing children out of the classroom and into early marriage and child labour.

A survey by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released on Monday suggested Syrian children’s mathematics and reading skills were falling far behind pre-war levels.

“... trauma and displacement leave children with emotional scars that can dramatically inhibit their ability learn,” said IRC’s CEO David Miliband.

Problems

“We are storing up huge problems for tomorrow if we do not give Syrian children the resources they need to heal, develop and thrive.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian army and its allies gained control of an arterial road in a small rebel pocket in northeast Damascus early on Monday, bringing them close to splitting the enclave in two, a Britainbased war monitor reported.

The advance was along a road that links the besieged districts of Barza, al-Qaboun and Tishrin near the Eastern Ghouta area of towns and farms that spreads out from the Syrian capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Barza, Qaboun and Tishrin area had already been isolated from the main rebel enclave in Eastern Ghouta, a region that has witnessed increasing violence since the beginning of the year.

There was also fighting overnight between the army and its allies and rebels in the southern city of Deraa and in areas near Aleppo in the northwest and Hama in the west accompanied by heavy bombardment and air strikes, the Observatory said.

Syria’s civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad backed by Russian air power, Iran and regional Shi’ite militias against mostly Sunni rebels that include jihadists as well as groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies.

The war has dragged in regional and global powers, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and sparked the In this picture taken in January 2017 and provided by UNICEF, a child carries manuals distributed by UNICEF volunteers in the area following an informative session on identifying and reporting unexploded objects, at Al-Sakhoor

neighbourhood, east Aleppo, Syria. (AP) worst refugee crisis since the second world war since it grew out of a mass uprising against Assad that began six years ago on Wednesday.

Assad’s allies Russia and Iran and the rebels’ backer Turkey sent delegations on Monday to Astana in Kazakhstan for a new round of peace talks but insurgents on Saturday demanded it be postponed because fighting has continued despite a ceasefire.

The army and its allies are trying to force rebels to agree to truces similar to those that have led to the evacuation of thousands of opposition fighters to northern Syria from other besieged pockets.

It has for weeks concentrated air strikes on Qaboun district, effectively ending a ceasefire that rebels in the area agreed with the Syrian army which had been in place since the end of 2013. Barza also agreed a full truce with the government in 2014.

The Syrian rebel delegation is not yet ready to attend a new round of peace talks due to start on Tuesday in the Kazakh capital Astana, a senior member of the delegation said on Monday.

Colonel Ahmad Othman, who heads the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad rebel brigade, said it was awaiting a Russian response to a letter that demands Moscow acts as a guarantor and ends violations of a ceasefire brokered last December by Russia and Turkey.

“Nothing has been implemented so far,” said Othman, complaining of Russian strikes on civilians and assaults by the Syrian army in rebel-held areas.