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Two years into the armed conflict, an estimated 17 million people in Yemen are facing food shortages, dragging the country into “one of the worst hunger crises in the world,” according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. Of the 2.2 million children suffering from acute malnutrition, more than 460,000 are severely and acutely malnourished.
The latest round of violence in the country started at the end of 2014 when Houthi rebels seized the capital Sana’a and escalated with the launch by a Saudi-led coalition of an aerial and ground campaign against Houthi forces and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The conflict has, between March 2015 and 23 February 2017, led to 4,667 civilian deaths, with 8,180 injured. Dozens of coalition airstrikes have indiscriminately or disproportionately killed and wounded thousands of civilians during the conflict. Among repeated violations against children by parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch has documented 58 apparently unlawful coalition airstrikes that killed at least 192 children, and multiple airstrikes that struck or damaged schools.
The UN human rights office has verified the recruitment of 1,476 children, all boys, between 26 March 2015 and 31 January 2017, mostly by the Popular Committees affiliated with the Houthis. “The numbers are likely to be much higher as most families are not willing to talk about the recruitment of their children, for fear of reprisals”, said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Interviews conducted by Amnesty International have also revealed that many families fear reprisals against their children who have been taken by the Houthis or against other childrenor family members if they dare speak out about the recruitment. Interviewees have also described how Houthi representatives run local centres that hold activities such as prayers, sermons and lectures where young boys and men are encouraged to join front-line battles to defend Yemen against Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi-led coalition has reportedly used internationally banned cluster munitions. In late February 2017, the coalition launched cluster munition rockets that struck a farm in northern Yemen, wounding two boys, aged 10 and 12, according to Human Rights Watch. Cluster munitions are prohibited by a 2008 treaty ratified by 100 countries and signed by another 19, though not by Yemen, or Saudi Arabia, and its coalition partners Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG), Leila Zerrougui, presented her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) earlier this month, marking the final time she will address the Council during her mandate. Zerrougui noted the impact of conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria on children, reporting that 104 grave violations of children’s rights were recorded in the final quarter of 2016. The SRSG commented that despite some cause for hope due to increased cooperation from States there were still several ongoing conflicts in which the level of cruelty remains “unthinkable”. The SRSG urged all countries to allow access to water, food and basic medical care in countries in conflictand particularly highlighted the risk to girls in the form of sexual violence, trafficking and denial of education when they are affected by conflict.
Several States responded to the reports by thanking the SRSG and many took the opportunity to speak up in favour of the Safe Schools Declaration, noting that protecting education helps shield children from effects of armedconflict. Argentina called on all States to endorse the declaration, and invited them to the second international conference on the declaration taking place on 28-29 March in Buenos Aires. The representative of Sudan intervened to thank Zerrougui for her visit in March last year and reiterated Sudan’s commitment to protecting children in conflict. Read more in CRIN’s round up of the HRC’s session.
Ugandan military and police killed scores of people, including children, during a military assault in Kasese, western Uganda on 26 and 27 November 2016 on the palace compound of the region’s cultural institution. Police spokespeople reported the death toll over the two days as 87, including 16 police. Human Rights Watch found the actual number to be much higher – at least 55 people, including at least 14 police, killed on 26 November, and more than 100, including at least 15 children, during the attack on the palace compound on 27 November.
The violence began on the morning of 26 November in Kasese, where there has been longstanding tension between a local cultural kingdom and the central government. Soldiers, forced their way into the kingdom’s administration offices in Kasese town. The soldiers killed eight members of the volunteer royal guards, who traditionally safeguard cultural sites. In a telephone interview on 24 February, 2017, Uganda’s military spokesman, Brigadier Richard Karemire, told Human Rights Watch that there has been no investigation into the military’s conduct and that none is planned.
Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has reported that the magnitude of violence experienced by Rohingya families who have fled to Bangladesh was “far more extensive” than she had originally speculated. Concluding a four-day visit to parts of Bangladesh where she met with displaced members of Myanmar's Rohingya community, Lee recounted several allegations of horrific attacks including throats being slit, indiscriminate shootings, houses being set alight with people tied up inside and very young children being thrown into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other instances of sexual violence.
Last month the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a flash report based on its interviews with the people who fled Myanmar. The report documented mass gang-rape, killings, including of babies and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the country's security forces. The violence includes incidents reported from the very beginning of the recent escalation of violence, which was precipitated by attacks on border posts in early October 2016 and the ensuing operations by security forces.
In addition to the alleged human rights violations occurring within the context of the security operations that followed the 9 October attacks, Lee also highlighted how the Government of Myanmar appears to have taken, and continues to take, actions which discriminate against the Rohingya and make their lives even more difficult.
Defence and security forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) used excessive, disproportionate and at times lethal force to prevent and contain demonstrations in December 2016, in violation of international human rights law and standards, according to a new UN report. According to the report, at least 40 people, including five women and two children, were killed between 15 and 31 December 2016 across several cities of the DRC. The report also revealed that all but two of the victims were killed by live ammunition. During the same period, at least 147 people were injured by State agents, including 14 women and 18 children, and at least 917 individuals, including 30 women and 95 children, were arrested by defence and security forces.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, urged the Government to bring those responsible for such violations to justice and urgently adopt the law on freedom of peaceful protests and the law on human rights defenders.
Armed conflict has forced more than one million children out of school in Nigeria. In May 2014, for example, students at the Sabongari Primary School in Gwoza, in northeastern Nigeria, stopped going to school. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of members of the Islamist armed group Boko Haram had arrived in the middle of the night. They attacked the Gwoza government’s military base and then brought their weapons and ammunition into the school. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western Education is Forbidden,” burned the school down about three weeks later, and the villagers fled the area a short time later.
In May 2015, a group of countries committed to protecting students, teachers, and places of learning during war in the Safe Schools Declaration. The Declaration contains a number of concrete steps that countries can take to protect education during wartime. These include helping to keep schools open and operating during armed conflict, making a commitment to investigate and prosecute war crimes relating to schools, and supporting the efforts of the UN to protect children during armedconflict. Countries that sign on to the Safe Schools Declaration also make a commitment to minimise the military use of schools, such as for barracks, which can make schools targets for attack. Since the Safe Schools Declaration was opened for endorsement, 59 countries have joined, including 17 African Union member States. Since 2009, at least 31 countries around the world have experienced targeted attacks on students, teachers, and schools.
With ‘no’ votes from permanent members Russia and China, the United Nations Security Council failed, again, to adopt a resolution that would have imposed sanctions against parties using chemical weapons in Syria. Media reports suggested that the draft resolution would have established a sanctions regime, a committee and an expert panel to hold accountable those using and producing chemical weapons in Syria.
As the conflict enters its seventh grim year, the Syrian people have watched huge parts of their country reduced to rubble, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator. “The toll taken on civilians is inexcusable. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Almost five million people – the majority of them women and children – have fled the grotesque violence and deprivation and are now living as refugees,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O‘Brien in his message on the crisis.
According to UNICEF, at least 652 children were killed last year – a 20 percent increase compared to 2015 – 255 were killed in or near a school. The most vulnerable among Syria's children are the 2.8 million in hard-to-reach areas, including 280,000 children living under siege, almost completely cut off from humanitarian aid.
The latest report of the UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria highlighted that the battle late last year for control over Aleppo saw a state of unrelenting violence, with civilians on both sides falling victim to war crimes committed by all parties. The report documents brutal tactics employed by the parties to the conflict in the country as they engaged in the decisive battle for the once iconic city between July and December 2016, resulting in unparalleled suffering for Syrian men, women and children. “The deliberate targeting of civilians has resulted in the immense loss of human life, including hundreds of children,” said Paulo Pinheiro, the Chair of the three-member Commission.
Increased border restrictions and lack of accessible legal ways to reach Europe have caused refugees and migrants to take more “diversified and dangerous journeys,” such as relying on people-smugglers or using flimsy boats to cross rough seas, a new report by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has revealed.
In addition to drowning, migrants and refugees also risk being kidnapped, held against their will for several days, physical and sexual abuse, torture and extortion by smugglers and criminal gangs at several points along key routes. It is believed that at least 181,000 people – including more than 25,800 unaccompanied children – used smugglers in 2016 to try to reach Italy, according to UNICEF.
UNHCR pointed out that in 2016, some 181,436 people arrived in Italy by sea in need of international protection, and also victims of trafficking and migrants seeking better lives. About 90 percent of them travelled by boat from Libya. Furthermore, children making this journey are especially vulnerable, and the number of unaccompanied and separated childrenarriving is increasing. Last year more than 25,000 came, representing 14 percent of all new arrivals in Italy.
According to a new UNICEF report, the routes from sub-Saharan Africa into Libya and across the sea to Europe are among the “world’s deadliest and most dangerous for children and women,” as the agency reported that nearly half of the women and children interviewed after making the voyage were raped. “Refugee and migrant children and women are routinely suffering sexual violence, exploitation, abuse and detention along the Central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa to Italy,” UNICEF warned in a new report, A Deadly Journey for Children: The Central Mediterranean Migrant Route . At the time of the report, 256,000 migrants were recorded in Libya – of whom about 54,000 were women and children. UNICEF estimates that this is a low count, with actual numbers at least three times higher.
Earlier this month, the Hungarian Parliament voted on a new law that could lead to mandatory detention of all asylum-seekers, including many children– for the entire length of the asylum procedure. “In practice, it means that every asylum-seeker, including children, would be detained in shipping containers surrounded by high razor wire fence at the border for extended periods of time,” said Cécile Pouilly, a spokesperson for UNHCR.
According to the UN agency, under international and EU laws, the detention of refugees and asylum-seekers could only be justified on a limited number of grounds, and only where it was necessary, reasonable and proportionate. “This is extremely worrying, especially thinking about children being detained,” noted Pouilly, adding: “Children should never be detained under any conditions as detention [is] never in a child's best interest.”
Since the start of Iraqi forces’ efforts to retake the western part of the city of Mosul on 19 February, more than 211,572 people have been displaced, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement (MoMD). UNICEF said that more than 100,000 children have been displaced from Mosul since the military operations against the so-called Islamic State (IS) began on 17 October 2016. Families escaping with children are reportedly taping their mouths with duct tape to ensure they don’t cry or make a sound that would alert IS. Other families are giving their children sleeping pills or Valium to keep them quiet during their escape.
As people leave the city, gruesome details have emerged of the group’s brutal rule. From reports of the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of 300 former police officers to the use of chemicals in attacks, there appears to be no end to the unimaginable horrors civilians have been forced to endure at the hands of IS. In al-Qayyarah, a town south of Mosul, Amnesty International gathered evidence pointing to an apparent chemical attack by IS on 6 October. Eyewitnesses said projectiles emitting a yellowish oily liquid with a strong garlic or onion smell landed on a local café and a family home. Those exposed suffered eye irritation, breathing difficulties, itching, skin redness, and eventually developed blisters. Two chemical weapons experts consulted by the organisation confirmed these symptoms are consistent with sulphur mustard exposure.
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