A new United Nations report on Thursday said that as many as 1,299 children were killed in the ongoing conflict in Syria last year as the Assad regime and its allies carry on with the indiscriminate attacks on civilians across Syria.
According to the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, hundreds of children were victims of sexual violence, targeted in attacks on schools, or recruited as soldiers.
Various UN reports indicated that the fighting, military operations and airstrikes have left hundreds of thousands of Syrian children without access to health care and education as hospitals, health facilities and schools remain a constant target for the Assad regime and its allies.
A record number of 652 children were killed in Syria last year, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said in a report published in mid-March 2017. More than a third of these children were killed in or near a school.
The most vulnerable among Syria’s children are the approximately two million in areas besieged by the Assad regime and in hard-to-reach areas, UNICEF added. Around five million children now need humanitarian assistance and are highly vulnerable to disease where there is little or no humanitarian assistance. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
