2016 ‘worst year yet’ for Syria children
Hundreds killed and recruited into combat
UNITED NATIONS: Children suffered a “drastic escalation” in violence from the Syrian civil war in 2016, the United Nations said on Sunday in a report that showed child deaths jumped at least 20% from the year before and recruitment of child combatants more than doubled.
The report, released by Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said 2016 was the worst year yet for children whose lives have been upended by the Syria conflict, which entered its seventh year this month.
“The depth of suffering is unprecedented,” Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement releasing the report.
“Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future.”
The report said “verified instances of killing, maiming and recruitment of children increased sharply last year in a drastic escalation of violence across the country”.
At least 652 children were killed from attacks in the country, the most since formal verification of child casualties began in 2014, the report said. At least 255 of them — more than one-third — were killed in or near a school, a reflection of how all sides in the conflict have disregarded schools as a haven in the war. A Unicef report in December said the UN had documented attacks on 84 schools in 2016.
The report said the number of children recruited last year to fight in the conflict exceeded 850, compared with 362 verified cases of child recruitment in 2015.
While most recruitment appeared to have been carried out by insurgent and extremist militant groups, a Unicef spokeswoman, Najwa Mekki, said “all parties in the conflict” had recruited children, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.
“Children are being used and recruited to fight directly on the front lines and are increasingly taking part in combat roles, including in extreme cases as executioners, suicide bombers and prison guards,” the report said.
Other statistics in the Unicef report showed 280,000 children live in hardto-reach areas almost completely cut off from humanitarian aid. Nearly six million children depend on such aid to survive, a 12-fold increase from 2012. Millions have been displaced, some as many as seven times.
More than two million Syrian children are living as refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, representing roughly half the number of Syrians who have fled their country since the conflict began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
The issuance of the report came amid little sign that the war will be settled anytime soon. Emboldened by military victories with the aid of Russia and Iran, Mr Assad has vowed to retake the entire country even as his negotiators have engaged with a coalition of opposition groups in talks brokered by the United Nations.
Parts of Syria also remain under the control of the Islamic State militant organisation, amid increased signs that an array of military forces from countries that include the United States and Russia will soon move to expel the group from its de facto capital in Syria’s northeast city of Raqqa.
The UN special envoy for the Syria conflict, Staffan de Mistura, has said that he intends to hold another round of negotiations in Geneva next week.