Beirut: Children are being increasingly recruited on the frontline in Syria’s war, with both sides to the conflict using boys as soldiers and even human shields, a British charity said on Wednesday.
Save the Children said in a report marking two years of violence in Syria that two million children were innocent victims of the bloody conflict that the United Nations says has cost at least 70,000 lives.
These children were struggling to find enough food to eat and were therefore under constant risk of malnutrition and disease, said the report, adding many were unable to go to school. Girls were being forced into early marriage in an effort to protect them from the perceived threat of sexual violence.
“Children are increasingly being put directly in harm’s way as they are being recruited by armed groups and forces,” said Save the Children. “There is a growing pattern of armed groups on both sides of the conflict recruiting children under 18 as porters, guards, informers or fighters.
“For many children and their families, this is seen as a source of pride. But some children are forcibly recruited into military activities, and in some cases children as young as eight have been used as human shields.”
One in three children reported having been hit, kicked or shot at, said the report entitled “Children Under Fire,” citing research carried out among refugee children by Turkey’s Bahcesehir University.
Thousands of children in Syria faced malnutrition, and millions were forced from their homes and live in parks, barns and in some cases caves, it said. “For millions of Syrian children, the innocence of childhood has been replaced by the cruel realities of trying to survive this vicious war,” said Carolyn Miles, the head of Save the Children. (PTI)
