The UN says there were 27,000 "grave violations" against children in conflicts across the world in 2022, up from 24,000 the previous year, including in Democratic of Congo and Somalia.
UN children’s agency also expressed particular concern about the plight of children in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Mozambique, Haiti and Ukraine.
“Grave violations” include the recruitment and use of children by combatants, killings and injuries, sexual violence, abductions, and attacks on schools and hospitals, it said.
It is the highest number verified by the UN since its monitoring reports began in 2005, Omar Abdi, UNICEF’s deputy executive director, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
The number of conflict situations “of concern” was also the highest — at 26.
Sudan conflict
Since the report, Abdi said, a serious conflict had erupted in Sudan where over one million children have been displaced by violent conflict and the UN has received reports that hundreds have been killed and injured.
Governments were the main perpetrators of the killing and maiming of children and of attacks on schools and hospitals in conflicts, the UN special envoy for children in armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, told the council
Gamba said, for example, last year three girls were gang raped in South Sudan “during five days of terror.”
