Over 26000 children experience highest number of grave violations in THESE conflicts: Report | Mint - Mint

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The children agency of the United Nations on Wednesday said that kids experienced the highest number of grave violations in conflicts between Israeli and Palestinians and in Congo and Somalia putting the most youngsters in peril, according to a report published by The Associated Press.

Grave violations include the recruitment and use of children by combatants, killings and injuries, sexual violence, abductions, and attacks on schools and hospitals.

UNICEF also expressed particular concern about their plight in Haiti, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Ukraine, where Russia has been put on the UN blacklist.

Speaking to the told the UN Security Council, Omar Abdi, UNICEF’s deputy executive director said that more than 27,000 grave violations, up from 24,000 the previous year, are the highest number verified by the UN since its monitoring reports began in 2005.

He said that a serious conflict has erupted in Sudan where over one million children have been displaced by violent and the UN has received reports that hundreds have been killed and injured.

Abdi also said UNICEF expects an increase in Palestinian children affected due to recent escalations in violence.

“Government and parties to conflicts are not fulfilling their commitments to protect children, and meaningful and unambiguous action is needed," the UNICEF official said as quoted by AP.

In his yearly report to the council late last month, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put Russian forces on the U.N.'s annual blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights in conflict for killing boys and girls and attacking schools and hospitals in Ukraine.

But the UNchief did not put Israel on the blacklist for grave violations against 1,139 Palestinian children, including 54 killings last year — as supporters had hoped – saying the UN welcomed its “identification of practical measures including those proposed by the UN" to protect children, AP reported.

The UN special envoy for children in armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, told the council that the 27,180 grave violations in 2022 were carried out against 18,890 children and included 8,620 who were killed or injured, 7,622 who were recruited or used by governments or armed groups in conflicts, 3,985 who were abducted, 1,165, almost all of them girls, who were raped, forced into marriage or sexual slavery or sexually assaulted.

The United Nations also verified attacks on 1,163 schools and 647 hospitals, a 112% increase from 2021, she said.

(With AP inputs)