United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Russia for the killing of 136 children in Ukraine during 2022 and added its armed forces to a global list of perpetrators of crimes, according to a report directed to the United Nations Security Council reviewed by Reuters.
The report states that the UN verified that the Russian armed forces and affiliated groups maimed 518 children and conducted 480 attacks on schools and hospitals. Furthermore, Russian forces used 91 children as human shields.
The report also confirmed that the Ukrainian armed forces killed 80 children and maimed 175, executing 212 attacks on schools and hospitals. However, the Kyiv forces were not included on the list of crime perpetrators. The report also found that Israeli forces killed 42 children and injured 933 others in 2022.
Guterres expressed in the report released yesterday that what particularly "shocked him" was the large number of children killed and maimed, and the attacks by the Russian armed forces on schools and hospitals. He also stated that he was "particularly disturbed" by the rising number of such crimes committed by the Ukrainian armed forces against children.
Regarding Israel, Guterres noted that he "observed a significant decrease in the number of children killed by Israeli forces, including airstrikes." Nevertheless, he stated, "I still feel very concerned about the number of children they killed and maimed." Israel is not on the list of offenders.
Guterres' annual report to the 15-member Security Council on children and armed conflict includes instances of child killing and maiming, sexual assaults, abductions and recruitment, as well as depriving them of aid and targeting schools and hospitals.
The report was prepared by Virginia Gamba, Guterres's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. Gamba visited Ukraine and Russia last month, where she met with Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
The UN report verified the abduction of 91 children by Russian armed forces, all of whom were subsequently released. It also confirmed the transfer of 46 children from Ukraine to Russia.
Russia has not concealed a program that brought thousands of Ukrainian children to its territory, portraying it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and abandoned children in the war zone.
The controversial list aims to shame parties involved in conflicts, hoping to compel them to implement measures to protect children. The list has long been contentious, with diplomats stating that Saudi Arabia and Israel exerted pressure in previous years to remain off it.
Israel has never been included on the list, while a Saudi-led military coalition was removed in 2020 after several years of being added for killing and injuring children in Yemen.
In an attempt to quell the debate surrounding the report, the list released by Guterres in 2017 was divided into two categories: one including parties that have taken measures to protect children, and another for those that have not. Russia was placed on the list of parties that have taken measures aimed at improving child protection.
Overall, the report verified 24,300 violations against children in 2022. The majority of violations were recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Guterres stated in the report, "While non-state armed groups were responsible for 50 percent of serious violations, government forces were the main perpetrators in the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and blocking access to humanitarian aid."
