Over 29,000 Syrian children killed since 2011

More than 29,000 children have been killed during the eight-year-long Syrian civil war, most of whom were the victims of the Syrian regime forces, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights report released ahead of World Children’s Day said 22,753 children were killed by forces loyal to the Bashar Assad regime and Iran-backed terrorist allies, between the dates of March 2011 and Nov. 20, 2019.

At least 186 children were killed in regime chemical attacks while 305 died due to malnutrition and medicine shortages in the areas besieged by the regime, the report revealed.

Russian forces, meanwhile, killed 1,928 children, while 984 children were killed by Syrian opposition forces, 956 by the Daesh terrorist group, 924 by the U.S.-led international coalition and 214 children were killed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group dominated by the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

More than 5,034 children, including 3,618 held by the Bashar Assad regime and 722 held by YPG terrorist group, remain in detention centers.

The report also points to the SDF’s violations of human rights, especially regarding child conscription. It reveals that 86 children have been conscripted by the SDF since 2014 and among them, 23 were killed in the war.

At least 326 children are also being held by Daesh in areas it controls.

Syria ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, as well as ratifying the two Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the report notes, adding that while all the parties to the conflict have violated Children’s rights, the Syrian regime has far exceeded all other parties in terms of the number and level of crimes perpetrated in a characteristic, systematic manner.

The report also revealed that school attendance in some areas has fallen 0%, mainly due to forced displacement, along with the other reasons like the bombing of schools and terrorist group’s confiscation of school buildings to turn them into military bases. It added that SDF’s brutal actions in the region, especially regarding discrimination against ethnicities other than Kurds, also caused dropouts in some areas.

Another crucial point the report mentions is that many children lack official documents since the ones born outside of regime-controlled areas are denied legal documents.

Other data shared by the organization shows that 14,298 individuals have died due to torture in the war-torn country. Almost 98% of them died at the hands of the regime forces

A total of 224,948 civilians have died in the war so far, and almost 200,000 of them were killed by the regime forces. According to the report, Daesh killed 5,000 civilians during the war, while the SDF killed another 1157 civilians.

Among the dead civilians, 28,011 were women and 10,000 of them were children.