March 29, 2024 18:10 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
PM Modi to kickstart BJP's Lok Sabha poll campaign from Meerut | Kangana Ranaut in Mandi: 'Don't think I am a heroine, consider me as your sister and daughter' | Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav demand high-level probe into Mukhtar Ansari's death | PM Modi has mastered art of manipulating democracy, hurting Constitution: Mallikarjun Kharge | Mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies of cardiac arrest at 63
 ‘Bunker-buster’ bombs in eastern Aleppo mean children not even safe underground, UN experts warn

‘Bunker-buster’ bombs in eastern Aleppo mean children not even safe underground, UN experts warn

India Blooms News Service | | 04 Oct 2016, 08:15 am
New York, Oct 4(Just Earth News): The killing and maiming of children in eastern Aleppo by the Syrian Government and its allies is not only a brutal abdication of international human rights obligations, it will have a long-lasting impact on the young victims for generations to come, United Nations child rights experts warned on Monday.


“Even if the war were to end on Monday, it will take decades to recover from the destruction wrought on Aleppo and across Syria and the psychological wounds to heal from the trauma inflicted on these children,” said Benyam Dawit Mezmur, Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

“We are probably not talking of a lost generation, but quite possibly of lost generations,” he added in a news release.

Mezmur recalled that Syria and Russia had both ratified the Child Rights Convention along with its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

“This doesn’t solely mean not recruiting and/or using child soldiers,” he underscored. “It means not targeting children in situations of armed conflict; it means not attacking places such as schools and hospitals, which might amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.”

Yet in eastern Aleppo, “this is what we are seeing,” he pointed out.

“Children are being killed and maimed. Airstrikes are hitting the few remaining hospitals. The use of bunker-busting bombs means children cannot even safely attend schools that are underground,” the child rights expert added.

The Geneva-based Committee recently heard detailed accounts of visiting Syrian doctors on the scale and extent of casualties among civilians as they struggled to treat the abhorrent injuries of the children.

“Children are not only being seriously injured but are trapped amid the continuing bombardment, unable to escape and receive life-saving medical care,” stressed Mezmur, adding: “The stunned, bloodied face of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance after being pulled from the rubble horrified the world, not least because it showed that war is all this child has known in his short life.”

Mezmur noted that the Convention has been ratified by 196 States and the Optional Protocol (OPAC) by 165.

“We call on Syria and Russia, as well the international community, to show they abide by their human rights obligations set out in those treaties and find a way to end this raging conflict now. Omran must not be an adolescent or even a young adult before he knows what peace is,” concluded the chairman.

The CRC is composed of 18 independent experts who monitor the implementation of the State parties to the Child Rights Convention along with that of two Optional Protocols, on involvement of children in armed conflict and on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Independent experts and Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

Photo: UNICEF/Khalil Alshawi

 

Source: www.justearthnews.com

 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.