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	What We Can Learn from Child Soldiers by Inter Press Service & agencies   13 March 2014   Human Rights Council: UN envoy details grave violations against children in conflict areas.   Armed conflicts have intensified recently in Syria and other countries, making such places increasingly hazardous to grow up in, a top United Nations child rights official warned the Human Rights Council today as she pledged to keep reaching out to conflict parties and mobilizing the international community to better protect children.   “In Syria, South Sudan, Central African Republic, but also in other countries, thousands of children are recruited, killed, maimed, raped and kidnapped,” Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict told the Geneva-based Council.   “The survivors are often deprived of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and denied their basic human rights,” she added.   Noting that yesterday, the Syrian crisis marked the end of its third year, Ms. Zerrougui stressed that grave violations against children are being committed by Government forces and opposition groups.   “I urge all parties to respect international humanitarian law and put an end to all violations against children, including - but not limited to - the killing and maiming of children, recruitment and use of children, as well as to cease all attacks on schools and hospitals and allow unimpeded humanitarian access,” she listed in her statement.   Noting that the number of children affected by the Syrian conflict has more than doubled over the past year, she said that “Syria has become one of the most dangerous places to be a child”.   Six and a half million people in Syria are internally displaced, and half of the 2.5 million refugees are children, she noted.   Of particular concern is the use of education facilities in the country, as well as in several other places, for military purposes.   “In 2013, we have witnessed an increasing and worrying number of attacks on schools in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Nigeria,” said Ms. Zerrougui. “We have to join forces, we must ensure that the essential role of education in emergencies is fully recognized and that children’s right to education is protected even in times of conflict.”   In addition, the office of the Special Representative is preparing to launch guidelines on monitoring and reporting of attacks against schools and hospitals. This will contribute to improve the accountability of perpetrators, in line with Security Council resolution 1998 on attacks against schools and hospitals adopted in 2011.   Last week, the Special Representative and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched, and the Security Council endorsed, the “Children, Not Soldiers” campaign to end the recruitment and use of children by Government armed forces in Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen by 2016.   The Governments of these countries have committed to the campaign, and Ms. Zerrougui today asked Member States, UN and NGO partners in Geneva to also support the efforts.   http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/   Mar 10 2014 (IPS)   In 2003, Moses Otiti, a 15-year-old from Uganda, was walking in a group with his father when members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) ambushed them.   Because he was a child, Moses was the only one to survive. For the next 12 months, he was forced to serve the LRA as a soldier in the rebel group’s war against the Ugandan government.   “The reason why they didn’t kill me was because they were really [looking for] people who were young…they really wanted to groom them as soldiers who can fight the battle against the government,” Otiti told IPS.   Conflicts in the modern age are being fought less frequently between states, and more often within them. And with this shift, the use of children in combat has emerged as a striking trend.   Researchers and those who work on the issue of child soldiers say that in conflicts where the phenomenon is present, there is a greater likelihood that mass atrocities will be committed.   “Children don’t have the same capacity to make decisions or to understand what may be right or wrong, or they might not have the same level of life experience or education to determine some of the things that an adult can,” Shelly Whitman, director of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, told IPS.   “It is a time when they are very impressionable and they are still figuring out their identity and moral compass.   “Problems of economics, development and social dynamics [are important] to look at as well,” she added. “When we get down to that level, it shows you that there are a whole wider set of problems, it is possible that when that is allowed to happen the [societal] degradation can go further.”   Moses describes the centrality of violence to the recruitment process, explaining how the LRA soldiers threatened to kill him, just like his father, unless he joined their army.   “For them to recruit you, they would cane you until you are at the point where you are about to die, and if you survive that means you can be a soldier. But if you die, that means you would not make a very good soldier…and that would be the end of you,” Otiti told IPS.   Commanders like children because it is easier to manipulate their psychological capacity to participate in mass atrocities. For example, Cambodian child soldiers under the Khmer Rouge were, as a result of this malleability, more ruthless towards civilians than adult soldiers, state Jo Boyden and Sara Gibbs in their book “Children of War”.   “Children are particularly affected by excessive violence because it occurs at a crucial stage of a human being’s development,” Marie Lamensch, assistant to the director at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), told IPS.   “The environment in which a child grows up affects his cognitive and affective development. Child soldiers, whether they kill or not, are exposed to physical and verbal violence, they are subject to fear and helplessness,” she said. “That trauma will affect the way they react to their environment, now and in the future.”   This is not to say that children do not have morals.   “[Children forced into military service] have their moral compass in the first few weeks of being abducted, and they know what they are doing is wrong, but the more they kill people, the more they rape or do other things like that, their brain and moral compass switches off,” Moses Makasa, director of development for Watoto, a Ugandan organisation which helps to rehabilitate former child soldiers like Otiti, told IPS.   Otiti’s experience echoes this process. “In the first month when I joined them, I was not comfortable with the things that were going on, but then I reached a situation where everything became almost normal,” he said.   “When I joined them (the LRA), I really felt that what they were doing wasn’t right, but then that thought kept on fading away from my mind…[But] I never liked it.”   Moses explained how this fading distinction between right and wrong made life with the LRA easier to manage.   Past, present and future   Several current conflicts display the correlation between child soldiers and the potential for mass atrocities.   South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) are “two situations where grave violations of human rights are taking place and where there is a great danger of mass atrocities,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a meeting of the General Assembly on Jan. 17.   On Feb. 4, the UN also published a special report on children in Syria’s civil war, which indicated the use of children in combat.   In 2002 the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, entered into force.   These outlawed the involvement of children under age 18 in hostilities and made the conscription, enlistment or use of children under age 15 in hostilities a war crime. In 2004, the U.N. Security Council also unanimously condemned the use of child soldiers.   Child soldiers are “the most easily identifiable warning tool” for mass atrocities, said Roméo Dallaire, U.N. commanding officer in the 1994 Rwandan peacekeeping mission, Canadian senator and founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, connecting the recruitment of child soldiers as both a precursor and “primary weapon” of the genocide in Rwanda and any potential future genocide.   Since Moses Otiti escaped from the LRA during a firefight with government forces, he has worked to rebuild his life, and is now studying hard to become a doctor.   “When I was still there, there were certain things they would do, like killing people, and that is how I used to understand things. But when I came home…my understanding of taking peoples lives for granted really changed,” he told IPS. “Every person is very important.”   “These children who are suffering so much today are the ones who will either repair those societies or repeat the violence of these societies in the next generation,” Anthony Lake, head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, said in February.   If the world does not seriously address the education and rehabilitation of these children, “we are going to lose generations,” he warned.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/can-learn-child-soldiers/ Visit the related web page
	Nigerian boarding school attack by Boko Haram gunmen leaves 59 pupils dead by UN News, AFP, Reuters Nigeria   Aug 2014   A forgotten tragedy – UN experts call for a stronger response to internal displacement in Nigeria.   Two United Nations human rights experts today called on the Government of Nigeria and the international community for a swift and stronger response to the plight of some 3.3 million people displaced in the country due to violence since 2010, one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world.   “International support to protect and assist those displaced has remained woefully insufficient and has not kept par with the speedy increase of IDPs in Nigeria”, warned the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani.   “Large scale internal displacement remains a national challenge in Nigeria,” Mr. Beyani noted. “The prevention of further displacement caused by indiscriminate killings, burning of villages and grenade attacks in crowded markets has to be a priority”.   The independent expert urged all parties to the hostilities to spare civilians and civilian areas, stressing that most of the displaced are women heads of households, many of them widows, and children.   “They have been the victims of violations, they have been traumatized, they have lost any means to provide for themselves, let alone their families, and they need urgent assistance,” he said. “Not only have IDPs lost all means to provide for themselves, but host communities have also exhausted their support capacity.”   The UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, who visited Nigeria in February 2014, explained that many of those displaced are persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities who have been victims of violence.   “Urgent steps should be taken to address not only the symptoms but the root causes of the mass displacement that is affecting some regions,” Ms. Izsak said. “Causes frequently lie beyond ethnic or faith factors, such as competition for land and resources and solutions require good governance in addition to effective security responses.”   In addition to life saving activities, the Special Rapporteur on IDPs drew special attention to the urgent need to restore livelihoods, services and governance capacity needs in order to allow IDPs to find durable solutions in the near future.   “The Nigerian authorities should make it a priority to adopt its draft national policy on IDPs, to serve as a framework to more efficiently respond to the needs of the internally displaced, including the support for durable solutions,” Mr. Beyani said.   “The assistance and protection of the displaced is first and foremost the responsibility of the Government of Nigeria,” the Special Rapporteur noted, while commending recent efforts to assist over 200,000 IDPs.   20 July 2014   Boko Haram insurgents murder 100 people in Nigerian town. Survivors say group fired RPGs, threw bombs into homes and gunned down people trying to escape the ensuing fires.   Boko Haram extremists have killed more than 100 people in a north-eastern town left undefended by Nigeria"s military, according to a civil defence spokesman and a human rights advocate.   Hundreds of people in another north-eastern area, Askira Uba, are fleeing after receiving letters from the Boko Haram threatening to attack and take over their villages, Abbas Gava, a spokesman for the Nigerian Vigilante Group said. "Nine major villages are on the run," he said.   Survivors said on Saturday that the insurgents had attacked the town of Damboa before dawn on Friday, firing rocket-propelled grenades, throwing homemade bombs into homes and gunning down people as they tried to escape the ensuing fires. Most of the town had burned down, they said.   14 April 2014   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his shock and sadness after a bomb attack at a bus station near the Nigerian capital of Abuja claimed dozens of lives and injured many others, calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.   More than 70 people have reportedly been killed in the bombing, which took place as commuters were about to board buses and taxis to go to work in the capital. Over 100 people are said to be injured in the attack.   “The Secretary-General expressed his shock and sadness at the many lives lost today,” he expresses the United Nations condolences for the bereaved families and to those injured.   “The United Nations strongly condemns all indiscriminate killings and acts of violent extremism”. “The perpetrators of this attack, and those responsible for the continuing brutal attacks in the northeast of the country, must be brought to justice.”   Later in the day, the members of the UN Security Council also strongly condemned the multiple terrorist attacks committed by Boko Haram that occurred in Nigeria on 13 and 14 April, causing numerous deaths and injuries.   In its statement the Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group.   4 March 2014   Top UN official in West Africa demands End of attacks targeting innocent civilians   Concerned about the escalation of acts of terrorism in north-eastern Nigeria, including along the border with Cameroon, the head of the United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) today strongly condemned the latest wave of “unspeakable” violence in the region and demanded an end to attacks targeting innocent civilians.   “This unprecedented cycle of violence must stop. The people of Nigeria deserve to live in peace and security,” declared Said Djinnit in a statement issued by UNOWA, in which he deplored the killing over the weekend of some 80 people by unidentified armed groups in Maiduguri, Mainok and Mafa villages in Borno state.   Borno, along with Nigeria’s northern states of Adamawa and Yobe, have been under states of emergency since May 2013 as the army fights Islamist Boko Haran rebels. The region has been prone to attacks by Islamic militants who have notoriously targeted civilians, including students and worshippers, politicians, members of Government institutions and foreign nationals. The continuing violence has displaced thousands of people, mainly to neighbouring Cameroon and Niger.   One week ago today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) strongly condemned the brutal slaying of dozens of students in an attack on the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi in Yobe state, and voiced the hope that the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice.   In his statement on the more renewed violence, Mr. Djinnit, who is also Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa, said the recent attacks – a series of deadly car bombings, according to media reports – which resulted in the death of more than 80 people, “are further unspeakable violence against innocent civilians who have been regularly targeted by indiscriminate terrorist attacks.”   25 Feb, 2014   At least 59 children have been killed in Nigeria after Islamist gunmen opened fire at a boarding school before burning it to the ground, officials say.   Members of the Boko Haram group targeted secondary school students as they slept in a dormitory, police say.   A military spokesman Lazarus Eli said the gunmen "opened fire on student hostels" at the Federal Government College, which is in the town of Buni Yadi in Yobe state and attended by students aged 11 to 18.   "Some of the students bodies were burned to ashes," police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said.   Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu, said: "Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries."   The name Boko Haram means "Western education is sinful" and school attacks have featured prominently in the group"s four-and-a-half-year Islamist uprising, which has killed thousands of people.   The police chief said all the victims in the attack were boys and the school"s 24 buildings, including staff quarters, had been completely destroyed by fire.   President Goodluck Jonathan called the attack a "callous and senseless murder ... by fanatics who have clearly lost all human morality".   Yobe is one of three north-eastern states placed under emergency rule in May last year when the military launched a operation to put down the Boko Haram uprising.   Analysts say the military action has failed, triggering reprisals against civilians, and the government"s failure to protect its citizens is fuelling anger in the region.   More than 1,000 people have been killed in the north-east since the emergency measures were imposed.   At least 40 students were killed in September at an agriculture training college in Yobe after Boko Haram gunmen stormed a series of dorms in the middle of the night and sprayed gunfire on sleeping students.   This month they are reported to have killed more than 300 people, mostly civilians. In one attack militants razed a whole village and shot panicked residents as they tried to flee.   http://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/boko-haram-kills-2053-civilians-6-months http://watchlist.org/who-will-care-for-us-grave-violations-against-children-in-northeastern-nigeria/   * Education Under Attack 2014 Report, from Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack: http://reliefweb.int/report/world/education-under-attack-2014 Visit the related web page
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