Skip to main content

Syrian children 'paying terrible price'



The United Nations Fund for Children has denounced the increase of violence in Syria, adding that children are paying a terrible price as the near two-year-old conflict drags on.

"UNICEF condemns these latest incidents in the strongest terms, and once again calls on all parties to ensure civilians - and children especially - are spared the effects of the conflict," the UN agency said on Saturday.

"A series of reports from Syria this week underlines the terrible price children are paying" in a conflict that has convulsed the country for 22 months and left more than 60,000 people dead, according to UN figures.

Maria Calivis, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: "Media reports today [Friday] from the scene of mass killings in the village of Hasweya outside Homs said whole families were among the dead in horrific circumstances."


"This is a children's refugee crisis. It's heartbreaking when we see these children arriving and particularly what we see in the days that follow," Panos Moumtzis, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) regional co-ordinator for Syrian refugees, said.More than half of the more than 600,000 refugees who have sought refuge from the Syrian conflict in neighbouring countries are under the age of 18 and the number of people fleeing could almost double by June, a senior UN official has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists and medics fort its information, has documented 3,538 children killed since the start of the revolt in March 2011. It also gave a toll of 2,031 women killed in the violence.

A UN delegation, including some UNICEF representatives, has arrived in the capital, Damascus. It is touring areas around the city, and places hit by some of the worst violence, like Homs and the village of Hasweya.

Earlier this week, activists reported 106 people - including many women and children - were burnt alive in their homes in the village.

There are conflicting reports about who is responsible.

Daraya shelling

Meanwhile, fighting has continued in the suburbs around Syria's capital.

Activists reported heavy shelling on Daraya, with as many as 80 explosions heard there on Saturday morning.

They said the blasts followed several air attacks by government forces.

Rebels are still in control of Daraya, but the regime has been fighting hard to take it over for about two months.

In another Syria-related development, Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, cited the country's increasing casualty count as a basis for an International Criminal Courtinvestigation into war crimes.

"I firmly believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed, are being committed, and should be investigated," she said as 58 countries called for a war crimes case against Syria, in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council.

Pillay told Al Jazeera that people in Syria "see the situation as the United Nations not carrying out its responsibility to protect victims".

Syria's foreign ministry criticised the petition, saying the initiative was proof of the "deceit and double standards" of the signatories.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has ...
Post a Comment
Read more

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, sp...
1 comment
Read more