CRINMAIL 153:

In this issue:

To view this CRINMAIL online, click here.

UN Open debate on children and armed conflict

The Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution expanding the criteria for listing parties to conflict in the Secretary-General’s annual report. The criteria, established during the SC's annual Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict, now include parties who attack schools and hospitals.

Prior to this resolution, the Secretary-General’s annual list was limited to parties who recruit or use children, kill and/or maim children, or commit sexual violence. Read more

Read a briefing note from Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict on practical and achievable steps that the UN Security Council can take to ensure stronger protection for children affected by armed conflict.

Download the 2011 Annual Report of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict

Curtain call on use of children in armed conflict

In Afghanistan, an eight year old girl was tricked last month by Taliban insurgents into carrying a bomb wrapped in cloth that detonated remotely when she was close to a police vehicle. Read more

"The disgraceful act of putting a bomb in a little girl’s basket and sending her unknowing to kill is almost unimaginable. The group or individuals responsible must be brought to justice." said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy. Read the press release

The Chadian government has signed an action plan to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The action plan spells out concrete steps which, once implemented, will result in Chad being removed from the Secretary-General’s list of parties who recruit and use children in armed conflict. Read the full article

Mrs. Coomaraswamy stressed that demobilised child soldiers will need help to reintegrate into society. She says that the UN will register demobilised children and follow them to their villages to make sure they arrive, and are not re-conscripted, and also plans to create educational programmes, concentrating on vocational schools to help with the children’s reintegration. Read more

The UN has issued the first report on the situation of children and armed conflict in Iraq pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1612 (2005) and 1882 (2009). The report finds that throughout the conflict in Iraq, armed groups have recruited, trained and used children to take part in hostilities both directly and indirectly. Children also continue to be killed and maimed in Iraq, as they remain exposed to a wide range of risks as a result of the conflict.

Read also the new United Nations report on children and armed conflict in the Central African Republic.

South Sudan: the world's newest nation

South Sudan became the world's newest nation on 9 July. The south's independence follows decades of conflict with the north. South Sudan became the 193rd country recognised by the UN and the 54th UN member state in Africa.

South Sudan should now make a formal declaration that it succeeds to the human rights treaties to which Sudan is a party and ratify additional regional and international human rights treaties that Sudan has failed to ratify such as the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Read the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch briefing paper on the human rights agenda in the Republic of South Sudan.

In recent months in Sudan, tension and armed violence have increased in the south and transitional areas. Ongoing clashes have resulted in a massive influx of refugees - mostly women and children - in camps throughout Sudan. Read more

Fighting that erupted in Abyei in mid-May between northern Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) resulted in a number of casualties and widespread (repetition) displacement of civilians. Read more

Thousands of civilians displaced in Syria

Escalating violence in Syria has displaced thousands of civilians, many of whom are children. Currently, they are housed and cared for in small makeshift camps, located just along the outskirts of the Turkish border. UNHCR estimates indicate that nearly 10,000 Syrians were either displaced or forced to flee by the violence in the north.

'A humanitarian border corridor should be set up between Syria and Turkey for refugees, and the UN Security Council should condemn Syria's "increasingly brutal" regime', said a representative of the European Parliament last week. Read press release

Former general arrested for genocide in Guatemala

An investigation by the Guatemalan authorities has begun into retired general Héctor Mario López Fuentes, 81, who was arrested last month. He has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in massacres of indigenous communities nearly three decades ago.

A UN-backed truth commission found that during Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict that ended in 1996, some 200,000 people were killed or disappeared and security forces committed 440 massacres in indigenous communities.

An army officer and a soldier who participated in a December 1982 massacre in Dos Erres village in Guatemala’s northern Petén region were also arrested earlier this year. Guatemalan security forces tortured and killed 250 men, women and children in Dos Erres before razing the village. Read more

Conflict and food crisis in Africa

More than 10 million people across the Horn of Africa are in dire need of humanitarian assistance due to a deadly combination of drought, escalating food prices and armed conflict. Among the most vulnerable are two million children under the age of five in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

As a result of the drought and ongoing civil conflict in Somalia, vast numbers of refugees have moved from that country into Kenya and Ethiopia in recent months.

More than 10,000 Somalis arrive at the Dadaab camps in eastern Kenya every week, after having trekked for days through the desiccated land. Their heath conditions are precarious, and malnutrition rates among children are alarmingly high. Read more

Also read the testimony of aSomali refugee woman who lost four of her children to starvation.

In Côte d’Ivoire, mainly in Abidjan, the effects of the country's internal conflict continue to take their toll. Forty per cent of families have gone from eating three meals a day before the conflict to one post-conflict, employment is scarce, and several sectors including security, water/sanitation, health and shelter in Abidjan and other parts of the country have been affected. Read full article

Appointment of UN Secretary-General

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was unanimously re-elected in the General Assembly on 21 June 2011. No alternative candidates emerged to challenge him.

While he received the strong and widespread support of member states, including all members of the Security Council and all regional groups, human rights groups and various other NGOs criticised the Secretary-General's performance, arguing that he is not aggressive enough in his efforts to protect human rights globally and has failed to achieve his two stated top priorities: addressing the atrocities in Darfur and the problem of climate change. Read more

Publications:

Armed Non-State Actors and Forced Displacement: a conference report (Geneva Call)

The expert conference was co‐organised by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and Geneva Call in Geneva, Switzerland, on 23 and 24 March 2011. The par ticipants sought to both identify the current challenges relating to the protection of internally displaced persons in situations involving Armed Non-State Actors (ANSA), and propose innovative ways to improve ANSAs’ commitments, not only to refrain from violating IDPs’ rights, but also to take steps to protect them.

Bridging the Accountability Gap: New Approaches to Addressing Violations Against Children in Armed Conflict (Conflict Dynamics International)

The report highlights the gaps between the efforts and the results in realising accountability for grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict, based on evaluation of a number of national and international mechanisms, including the UN Security Council, to achieve accountability for violations against children in armed conflict.

THE LAST WORD

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