UN: 'Unspeakable suffering' for Syria's children

One of those things that make me ashamed and repulsed to be a human.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140205/DABP5RT83.html

Feb 5, 10:51 AM (ET)
By BARBARA SURK

BEIRUT (AP) - Children in Syria have been tortured, maimed and sexually abused by President Bashar Assad's forces and recruited for combat by the rebels fighting to topple him, according to a new United Nations report.

The report highlights what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon termed the "unspeakable suffering" experienced by children in the country's nearly 3-year-old conflict.

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Syria's conflict was sparked by the detention and torture of schoolchildren who spray-painted anti-government graffiti in a southern city in 2011. It began as largely peaceful protests, but after a government crackdown it evolved into a bloody civil war that has killed more than 130,000 people, according to activists.

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The U.N. said government forces have been responsible for the arrest, arbitrary detention, ill treatment and torture of children. Children as young as 11 have been detained by the authorities on suspicion of having links with armed groups.

Children in government custody have reportedly suffered beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons, electric shock and sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape, mock executions, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement, the report said.

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Allegations of sexual violence by opposition groups were also received, but the UN was unable to further investigate them due to lack of access to areas in under rebel control, the report says.

While Assad's forces have used children as human shields in the fighting, the report also blasted rebels for "recruitment and use of children both in combat and support roles, as well as for conducting military operations."

During the first two years of the conflict, most killings and maiming of children were attributed to government forces, the U.N. report said. During 2013, the opposition forces have increasingly "engaged in such acts," the report said.

"Armed opposition groups also engaged in the summary execution of children," the report said. It said U.N. investigators have not been able to reach many of the rebel-held areas for lack of security there, and consequently have been unable to further investigate and document those violations.

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