Report: 30,000 Syrian Children Killed, Including 181 Tortured Since 2011
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said that at least 29,661 children have been killed in Syria since March 2011, including 181 due to torture, in addition to 5,036 Children who are still detained or forcibly disappeared.
In its tenth annual report on violations against children in Syria on the occasion of International Children’s Day, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said that 29,661 children were killed by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces, “including 22,930 at the hands of the Syrian regime forces, 2,032 by Russian forces, 958 by ISIS, and 71 others by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.”
The data showed that the Syrian regime was responsible for nearly 78 percent of extrajudicial killings. Based on the cumulative indicator of the death toll, 2013 was the worst year in terms of the killing of children, followed by 2012, 2014, and 2016.
The report said at least 5,036 children were still detained by the conflict parties and the controlling forces in Syria, including 3,649 by the Syrian regime forces, and 42 by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, 667 at the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces and 359 by all armed opposition factions and the National Army.
The report registered the deaths of 181 children due to torture in Syria since March 2011, including 174 who died in the detention centers of the Syrian regime.
It also claimed that there were at least 2.5 million displaced children in Syria, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, most of whom live in camps or tents that extend over large areas, which are mostly outside the control of the Syrian regime forces.
The report said that attacks by Russian forces with cluster munitions in particular, have killed 67 children since their military intervention in Syria at the end of 2015, while their military operations have damaged at least 220 schools.
