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	Millions of children around the world are caught up in adults’ wars by United Nations Children’s Fund, agencies   Millions of children around the world are caught up in adults’ wars, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, with a strong call for accountability and robust measures to end all “horrors” children face. It is estimated that some 230 million children are growing up caught in the middle of conflicts.   UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said that today, millions of children are deliberately killed, injured, raped, abducted. Their schools and homes are being destroyed; they are being denied food, water and health care. Tens of thousands are forced to join armed forces and groups.   The rising death toll of civilians, specifically women and children, in ongoing military conflicts is generating strong messages of condemnation from international institutions and human rights organisations – with the United Nations remaining helpless as killings keep multiplying.   The worst offenders are warring parties in “the world’s five most conflicted countries”, namely Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR), and Yemen.   According to UNICEF, there have not been this many child refugees since the end of the Second World War.   The 1949 Geneva Convention, which governs the basic rules of war, has also continued to be violated in conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Gaza, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among a host of other military hotspots.   The current conflict in Yemen for example is a particular tragedy for children, says UNICEF Representative in Yemen, Julien Harneis. “Children are being killed by bombs or bullets and those that survive face the growing threat of disease and malnutrition.   Across the country, nearly 10 million children – 80 per cent of the country’s under-18 population – are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.   The different dimensions of the crisis facing children in Yemen include: 15.2 million people lack access to basic health care, with 900 health facilities closed since March 26; 1.8 million children are likely to suffer from some form of malnutrition by the end of the year. Additionally, 20.4 million people are in need of assistance to establish or maintain access to safe water and sanitation due to fuel shortages, 3,600 schools have closed down, affecting over 1.8 million children.   “But violence involving children in conflicts has taken a darker turn,” Mr. Lake warned, spotlighting reports from Iraq, Nigeria and Syria that have revealed how children are being used by adults as perpetrators of extreme violence – children who have been forced to observe and participate in executions, encouraged to believe that violence is normal, their young and impressionable minds exposed to senseless brutality, in total disregard of the sanctity of childhood.   “Every child in a conflict who is killed or has witnessed the brutality of war, is a victim – an innocent who has borne the cost of conflict not of her or his making”.   “We should be outraged that such suffering continues and that more is not being done to end these horrors and to hold those responsible to account.”   http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/ http://www.unicef.org/appeals/ http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ http://www.dmeforpeace.org/ http://www.dmeforpeace.org/educateforpeace/subject/keyissues/ http://www.unicef.org/endviolence/   * Access Unicef videos - Children in conflict via the link below   Plight of Children caught in Conflict Worsening, reports Leila Zerrougui - Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict   There has been an “increasing disregard for international law” in many conflict situations around the world, leading to a worsening of the plight of children, Leila Zerrougui told Member States today as she delivered her annual report to the United Nations General Assembly.   The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) highlighted multiple countries where conflict is ongoing or tensions and violence are rising – and said that children are paying a very high price in each of these situations. She also noted that children make up almost half the mounting number of refugees and displaced persons fleeing hostilities.   “Every year I have said that the plight of children in conflict has worsened,” SRSG Zerrougui said to the General Assembly. “Unfortunately, this trend has not changed.”   The 32-page report covers the period from August 2014 to July 2015.   She additionally drew attention to groups that perpetrate extreme violence, saying they have committed “unspeakable atrocities against children”.   However, she also cautioned that when responses to these groups fail to comply with international law, there is a risk of “aiding the very groups Governments seek to combat”.   She said that education is a “key factor in countering the extremist discourse of these groups and reducing the risk of radicalization”.   Other issues the Special Representative raised include attacks on education, child abductions, the arrest and detention of children on security charges and without due process, and the need for resources to facilitate reintegration of former child soldiers, including girls. She highlighted progress made in the “Children, Not Soldiers” campaign to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children by Government forces in armed conflict.   November 2015   Children as young as eight are being recruited by IS in Syria and Iraq as soldiers and suicide bombers, reports Evan Williams for SBS Dateline.   In one video made by IS, a young boy is seen hacking the head off a teddy bear, before holding up the knife to the camera. Others obtained by Evan Williams and screened on Dateline show large groups of children undergoing violent training sessions, preparing them to kill and be killed.   “How young would be the youngest boy that wants to be a suicide bomber?” he asks 14-year-old ‘Abu Ibrahim’, who managed to escape. “The youngest I saw do an operation was eight-years-old,” he says. “They said you should give them everything, even sacrifice yourself.”   The so-called Islamic State (IS) is believed to have tens of thousands of children under its control in Syria and Iraq – actively recruiting and radicalising them from a young age. They call them ‘Cubs of the Caliphate’.   Videos also show them beheading a Syrian officer and apparently executing two alleged Russian spies. And young recruits are forced to not only watch films like those, but real executions being carried out in front of them.   “They showed us how they kill President Bashar’s soldiers,” 11-year-old ‘Ahmed’ tells Evan. “Sometimes we tried not to watch, but when we did we were scared.”   Evan met 14-year-old ''Omar'', who was tortured for a month and a half after refusing to join IS and then publicly punished.   “They cut my hand off with a butcher’s knife,” he tells Evan just days after managing to escape Syria. “Then they cut off my foot and put them both in front of me for me to see.” The attack was carried out by a man known as ‘The Bulldozer’.   “They brought children and teenagers and told them, ‘all those who fight against us will have their hands and feet cut off’,” he says. “I have given up on life, I cannot walk, I cannot hold anything.”   Children are also taught to spy on their parents, who risk death if they object to their children joining IS.   * “The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in particular, the inclusion therein as a war crime, of conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years or using them to participate actively in hostilities in armed conflict. Access the 2015 reports by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict and the annual report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict via the links below:   http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/countries/syria/ http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/ http://bit.ly/1MPCw7Q http://bit.ly/1P4ZR7i http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPACCRC.aspx Visit the related web page
	A human obligation to shelter those fleeing from war and persecution by Dominic Mac Sorley, Antonio Guterres UNHCR, Concern Worldwide, agencies   August 2015   Sustainable solutions, not just Band-Aids of rescue and resettlement, by Dominic Mac Sorley, CEO, Concern Worldwide.   Today’s humanitarian emergencies are beyond anything we have experienced in living history. Conflict and global terrorism have propelled the number of refugees and displaced people in the world to almost 60 million. These numbers are staggering.   Yet, the world has changed since the 1950s, when current refugee laws emerged to deal with the massive population movements across Europe as a result of World War II.   If we needed any more evidence of how we have collectively failed to implement sufficient legal protection for those fleeing conflict and destitution, then the recent tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea provide exactly that. The International Organisation for Migration has stated that more than 2,000 migrants have died so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. These deadly episodes have become a frequent occurrence, and it is to our shame that they are entirely preventable.   We have a moral responsibility to act immediately to avert further loss of life by creating credible, safe and legal avenues to enable desperate people to find refuge and sanctuary, while improving and expanding search and rescue operations.   But here’s the hard part: as important as it is to find a comprehensive approach to managing migration, this is ultimately a Band-Aid solution to a much larger problem.   Just look at where the majority of the migrants are coming from: sub-Saharan Africa, Somalia, Eritrea, Mali and Syria—all countries experiencing acute levels of conflict, persecution and poverty.   The factors pushing people to gamble their lives on a sea-crossing to Italy are still in place. Their journeys, though taken in the 21st century, resonate with one of the terrible chapters of our own history: the coffin ships.   So we can’t afford to waste more time. We need to tackle the root causes of this tragedy.   Incredibly, Syria alone accounts for more than one fifth of the people homeless and on the move in our world today, including some 7.6 million displaced within its borders and almost 4 million living as refugees outside.   These are people who have been bombed out of their homes, persecuted, denied food, water, and access to health facilities. They’ve seen their families ripped apart, their communities destroyed. As one refugee woman described it to our staff, it was “like falling from heaven to hell”.   The vast majority of these courageous people who have already survived so much devastation are to be found living a perilous existence as refugees amid swollen host communities in the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.   I was back in Lebanon earlier this year, a country an eight the size of Ireland that has provided a safe haven for 1.2 million Syrian refugees, an extraordinarily generous commitment that is increasingly strained given the massive pressure this is having on the local economy and on overstretched health and education services.   Now entering its fifth year, Syria has come to symbolise our collective failure to provide adequate protection to civilians caught in conflict.   Asylum, resettlement, and the need for continued funding to support host countries are all critical.   But, ultimately, the single most important issue is the abysmal failure of the United Nations Security Council to reach a political solution to end Syria"s civil war.   Just take as an example the three Security Council resolutions on humanitarian access and protection of civilians in Syria. They are bold, clear commitments to ending the suffering of the Syrian population. But without the political and financial back-up from individual member states, they remain little more than words on a page.   It is now time for powerful and influential governments to put aside narrow self-interests and take concrete steps to significantly scale up humanitarian assistance to meet people"s immediate needs and push the warring parties towards a political solution.   And this needs to happen now. We can move fast when we need to. The European Union met immediately for crisis talks the day after so many lives were lost at sea in April and developed a ten-point plan. The same speed and resolve needs to be brought to bear to end the suffering of Syrian civilians and reopen stalemated peace talks to end the bloody conflict.   We can’t afford to succumb to hopelessness or throw our hands up in the air. Ending the desperation and suffering for millions of Syrians is the moral challenge of our time.   From January to August last year, 1,607 migrants died at sea. This year that figure has increased to more than 2,000 for the same period this year.   If we don’t act soon, decisively and daringly on securing sustainable solutions, we are not going to be able to escape blame the next time a migrant ship sinks, taking countless human lives and dreams with it.   http://blog.concern.net/   20 June 2015   Spreading global violence is threatening the foundations of the international system, the head of the UN refugee agency, Antonio Guterres warns on World Refugee Day.   Fifteen years into a millennium that many of us hoped would see an end to war, a spreading global violence has come to threaten the very foundations of our international system.   More people fled last year than at any other time in our records. Around the world, almost 60 million have been displaced by conflict and persecution. Nearly 20 million of them are refugees, and more than half are children. Their numbers are growing and accelerating, every single day, on every continent.   In 2014, an average of 42,500 people became refugees, asylum-seekers or internally displaced persons, every single day – that is four times more than just 4 years ago. These people rely on us for their survival and hope. They will remember what we do.   Yet, even as this tragedy unfolds, some of the countries most able to help are shutting their gates to people seeking asylum. Borders are closing, pushbacks are increasing, and hostility is rising. Avenues for legitimate escape are fading away. And humanitarian organizations like mine run on shoestring budgets, unable to meet the spiralling needs of such a massive population of victims.   We have reached a moment of truth. World stability is falling apart leaving a wake of displacement on an unprecedented scale. Global powers have become either passive observers or distant players in the conflicts driving so many innocent civilians from their homes.   In this world at war, where power relations are unclear, and unpredictability and impunity have become the name of the game, it is now urgent for all those with leverage over the parties to these conflicts to put aside their differences and come together to create the conditions for ending the bloodshed.   But in the meantime, the world must either shoulder collectively the burden of helping the victims of war, or risk standing by as less wealthy countries and communities – which host 86 per cent of the world"s refugees – become overwhelmed and unstable.   Since the beginnings of civilization, we have treated refugees as deserving of our protection. Whatever our differences, we have recognized a fundamental human obligation to shelter those fleeing from war and persecution.   Yet today, some of the wealthiest among us are challenging this ancient principle, casting refugees as gate crashers, job seekers or terrorists. This is a dangerous course of action, short-sighted, morally wrong, and – in some cases – in breach of international obligations.   It is time to stop hiding behind misleading words. Richer nations must acknowledge refugees for the victims they are, fleeing from wars they were unable to prevent or stop. And then wealthier countries must decide on whether to shoulder their fair share, at home and abroad, or to hide behind walls as a growing anarchy spreads across the world.   For me, the choice is clear: either allow the cancer of forced displacement to spread untreated, or manage the crisis together. We have the solutions and the expertise. It won’t be easy or cheap, but it will be worth it. History has shown that doing the right thing for victims of war and persecution engenders goodwill and prosperity for generations. And it fosters stability in the long run.   The world needs to renew its commitment now to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its principles that made us strong. To offer safe harbour, both in our own countries and in the epicentres of the crises, and to help refugees restore their lives. We must not fail.   http://www.unhcr.org/refugeeday/stories/ http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51208#.VZH4IFKpWzm http://ifrc-media.org/interactive/protect-humanity/ Visit the related web page
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