Sudan tops UN envoy’s concerns about children caught in conflicts, with Congo and Haiti next

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations The envoy charged with reporting on violations against children in conflicts around the world said Thursday that she is first and foremost concerned about what is happening to young people in war-torn Sudan, followed by Congo and Haiti.

Virginia Gamba told a press conference where the Secretary General’s annual report and the UN’s blacklist of offenders were officially launched that she is also deeply concerned about children trapped in the civil war in Myanmar and the spillover into neighboring Bangladesh.

“Going forward, on the horizon,” she said, “I worry about Somalia and Afghanistan.”

The report blacklisted Israeli forces as well as militants from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the first time in 2023 for violating children’s rights. Hamas’ surprise invasion on October 7 of southern Israel and its vast army retaliatory measures in Gaza that are still ongoing.

The UN also blacklisted Russia’s armed forces and affiliated armed groups for a second year killing and mutilating Ukrainian children and attacks on schools and hospitals in 2023.

Gamba said she is deeply concerned about the fate of children in the region wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

“But the things I’m really concerned about, let’s say the rest of this year and early next year, are first and foremost Sudanespecially Darfur, and Chad because it is expanding,” she said.

Sudan became embroiled in conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders erupted in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions, including Darfur, which became synonymous with genocide and war crimes two decades ago. According to the UN, more than 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured.

Gamba said their “savage armed struggle” has led to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces being blacklisted for murder and mutilation, rape and committing other acts of sexual violence, as well as attacking schools and hospitals. Sudanese forces were listed for killing and injuring children and attacking schools and hospitals.

In CongoThe 13,500-strong UN peacekeeping force is withdrawing at the end of December, leaving rebel groups and government forces to continue fighting in the mineral-rich east, where security has deteriorated. Gamba said “large-scale sexual violence” against children is taking place and “will increase.”

According to the new report, the Congolese armed forces and sixteen armed groups fighting in the country have been blacklisted by the UN for violating children’s rights.

When the The UN withdrawal is completeGamba said: “I’m losing my eyes.” While monitoring of the abuses will continue, the involvement will not be the same, she said.

Violence in Haiti did not become a “situation of concern” for her office until June 2023, Gamba said, which is why it only tracked violence against children during the last six months of that year. This meant that Secretary General Antonio Guterres did not have sufficient data to decide whether parties should be blacklisted.

Since the war, gangs have grown in power July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and now control an estimated 80% of the capital. The rise in murders, rapes and kidnappings has led to a violent uprising of a vigilante group S.

In the report, the UN chief expressed deep concern about the “indiscriminate violence perpetrated by armed gangs and serious violations against children.” It says the UN verified 383 serious violations against 307 children in the last six months of 2023 – 160 boys, 117 girls and 30 whose gender was not known – and lists around a dozen gangs as responsible for the violations .

Gamba said she is deeply concerned because serious violations of children’s rights “seem to be endemic, and especially systemic (is) the rape of girls.”