Reuters and AFP have seen before publication an annual U.N. report in which the organization’s head, António Guterres, named Russia responsible for the murder of 136 children in Ukraine in 2022 and added the Russian army to the list of global perpetrators. The report has been circulated to members of the UN Security Council (where Russia has and often uses its veto power) and will be officially released next week, AFP writes.
The UN confirms that Russian armed forces and affiliated groups have also maimed 518 children, used 91 children as human shields and carried out 480 attacks on schools and hospitals. The Ukrainian army, according to the UN, is responsible for the deaths of 80 children, the maiming of 175 children and 212 attacks on schools and hospitals. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not on the world’s list of perpetrators.
According to Gutteres, he was “particularly shocked” by the high number of children killed and maimed and the attacks on schools and hospitals by the Russian army. He also stressed that the number of such crimes against children by the Ukrainian armed forces worries him greatly.
The report focuses on children in war zones and covers their killing, maiming, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment, denial of aid, and attacks on schools and hospitals, and was written by Virginia Gamba, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. She visited Ukraine and Russia last month, where she met with Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for children’s rights.
The International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin, on charges of illegally removing children from Ukraine and illegally transferring people to Russia from Ukraine after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
