UN appeals on explosive weapons
UNITED Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Internation
have issued a joint appeal to stop using explosive weapons in cities that results in devastation and suffering for citizens.
“Idlib and Tripoli are currently enduring untold suffering and destruction from a hail of bombs and shells, joining a long list of cities before them — including most recently Mosul, Aleppo, Raqqa, Taiz, Donetsk, Fallujah and Sana’a,” they said.
“They rarely make the top headlines, but they should. War in cities cannot be back-page news. In fact,
suffering its impacts,” they added.
Alarmed at the devastating humanitarian consequences of urban
appealing to States and
all parties of casualties — over 90 percent, according to one estimate — are civilians. The harrowing images from population centres in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine — to name but a few — show a pattern of grave civilian harm impossible to ignore, yet too often forgotten.
“Parties to conflict should recognize that they cannot fight in populated areas in the way they would in open battlefields. They must recognize that using explosive weapons with wide area effects in cities, towns, and refugee camps places civilians at high risk of indiscriminate harm,” the joint statement said.
Infrastructure necessary for the functioning of basic services — water, electricity, sanitation, health care — are also damaged or destroyed. This triggers domino effects that exacerbate suffering. In one of countless examples, last month in Aden, Yemen, at least 200,000 people were left without reach the wounded, and hospitals are irreparably damaged,” the joint statement said.
For those who survive, life becomes unbearable — and they are
- mer, in two months alone, around 100,000 people were displaced due to heavy bombing and shelling in Tripoli. Displaced persons are particularly vulnerable to risks to their health and lives, especially
million internally displaced across the country are unable to go back home. Those who do, struggle to rebuild their lives against all odds; their homes have been destroyed, essential service networks have collapsed, and the threat of explosive remnants of war is everywhere.
The massive destruction caused by armed conflicts in cities can set development indexes back by years and even decades: for exam