At Least 10,000 Children Killed in Syria, U.N. Estimates
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
The United Nations report, quietly presented to the Security Council
last week, details torture, abduction and grave abuse of children by
both sides in the conflict.
At Least 10,000 Children Killed in Syria, U.N. Estimates
UNITED NATIONS — United Nations investigators say in a new report
that children in Syria have been sexually abused in government
detention, recruited to fight with opposition forces, tortured and used
as civilian shields.
The
report, the first to assess the impact of the nearly 3-year-old Syria
war on children, was quietly presented to the Security Council last
week, as Syrian government and opposition representatives were meeting
in Switzerland for peace talks under the auspices of the United Nations.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, is scheduled to brief the council next week on the report, which was not released publicly until Monday.
It
estimated that at least 10,000 children had been killed and that “grave
violations against children” had been committed by “all parties to the
conflict” since it began in March 2011. While the report did not discuss
accountability, the evidence it presents will inevitably invite
discussion about how to pursue accountability for accused war criminals.
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In
2011 and 2012, the report said, children as young as 11 were held in
government detention centers with adults and, according to witnesses,
subjected to torture to coerce relatives to surrender or confess.
“Ill
treatment and acts tantamount to torture reportedly included beatings
with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons; electric shocks,
including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails;
sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions;
cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure
to the torture of relatives,” the report stated. “Reports indicate that
children were also suspended from walls or ceilings by their wrists or
other limbs, were forced to put their head, neck and legs through a tire
while being beaten, and were tied to a board and beaten.”
The
report said it had documented reports of sexual violence against
children in government detention, “perpetrated mostly by members of the
Syrian intelligence services and the Syrian Armed Forces” against those
who were suspected of being affiliated with the opposition.
The
government denies it detains children. In Geneva, Fayssal Mekdad, the
deputy foreign minister, said in response to a question in late January
the day before the report went to the Security Council: “I categorically
deny there are any children being detained. Those are rumors.”
He accused the opposition forces, which the Syrian government generically calls terrorists, of abducting and killing children.
The
United Nations investigators also received allegations of sexual
violence by opposition fighters but were unable to corroborate them
because of what the report called “lack of access.”
In
2011 and 2012, the United Nations investigation, quoting witnesses,
said that government forces shot at children as young as 11 who were
among groups of antigovernment demonstrators. A witness in Idlib, in
northern Syria, said he had carried two boys, 12 and 17, to the hospital
after he was shot by government forces. The report cites the father of a
7-month-old boy who was shot by a sniper positioned at a Syrian Air
Force checkpoint in Homs.
The
report also chronicled abuse by opposition forces, particularly as the
war intensified starting in 2013, including summary executions of
children. It received two reports from Hasakah Province, in northeast
Syria: a 16-year-old boy shot to death in April 2013 by the Nusra Front,
an extremist faction aligned with Al Qaeda, and a 14-year-old boy
killed by members of a Kurdish group. The Syrian government told United
Nations investigators that at least 130 children had been killed by
opposition forces in different parts of the country.
The
report said the Free Syrian Army, the main opposition force, had
recruited children in military and support roles. While there seemed to
be no systematic policy of drawing children into combat, the report
said, there were no age verification procedure. “Many boys stated that
they felt it was their duty to join the opposition,” the report said,
adding that at times children were drawn into fighting “by an elder male
relative.”
A
spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme Military Council, who goes by the
name Omar Abu Leila to protect his family, said that the Free Syrian
Army only permits combatants who are at least 18, but that other rebel
groups might deploy younger teenagers. “I don’t believe the report
because the number of fighters in the Free Syrian Army is large, so
there is no need to use children,” he said.
Pro-government
militias and opposition forces were accused in the report of abducting
children, often for ransom or to barter for the release of prisoners.
Humanitarian workers also were abducted, arrested and killed. As of Oct.
31, 2013, the report said, 13 Syrians who worked for the United Nations
had been killed, while another 22 “remained detained, missing or
abducted.”
COPY http://www.nytimes.com/
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