Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism – UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi warned about the children situation in the conflicts, at the UN Security Council Open Debate on to prevent and respond to grave violations against children in armed conflict.
He said, “Today is a difficult day in the history of the children and armed conflict agenda. This year’s report from the Secretary-General includes both the highest number of grave violations ever verified by the United Nations at over 27,000 and the highest ever number of situations of concern at 26.
He continued, “UNICEF is gravely concerned by the plight of children in the situations most recently added to the report, including Haiti and Niger this year, and Ethiopia, Mozambique and Ukraine in 2022. However, we should bear in mind that the highest numbers of grave violations against children were verified in longstanding protracted conflicts, including those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel and the State of Palestine, and Somalia.
He added, “These three situations have consistently appeared in the Secretary-General’s report since the monitoring and reporting mechanism was established in 2005, meaning that children in these contexts have faced unrelenting grave violations for years, and in some cases like the children in the State of Palestine, for decades. Due to recent escalations, we expect verified violations in at least some of these situations to increase over the coming months.
Omar Abdi continued, and while the eruption of a new conflict in Sudan has occurred outside of the reporting period for this year’s report, UNICEF is also gravely concerned about the impact of the ongoing conflict on the country’s 21 million children. More than one million children have now been displaced by the fighting and the UN has received credible reports, under verification, that hundreds of children have been killed and injured.
