The indifferent players on the world stage not only turned a blind eye to the suffering of Syrians but they also unleashed their dogs of war in the form of proxies, a ruthless regime and militant groups.
While President Obama did nothing to address the situation when Bashar al Assad crossed the U.S.-set red line on the use of chemical weapons, Russia openly supported Assad. Saudi-Iranian ideological rivalry was also to blame for the horrors Syria has faced at the hands of Assad, ISIS, and Iranian militias.
Now nine years after one of the deadliest civil wars began with Assad regime’s suppression of people’s struggle for democracy during the first Arab Spring movement, a new report the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria tells how the conflict scarred the Syrian children.
The scars of the ongoing war are both physical and psychological.
According to the world body, the Commission comprising three members was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate and record all violations of international law related to the Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011.
The study is entitled “They have erased the dreams of my children,” a quote taken from a 2012 interview with a woman discussing attacks on her village in Idlib:
“They have erased the dreams of my children. They have destroyed what we have built during our whole life; my daughter was so depressed when she found out that our house was burnt down. My other child, a three-year-old boy, is traumatized by the crisis. He is continuously drawing tanks”
The new report is based on approximately 5,000 interviews conducted between September 2011 and October 2019 with Syrian children.
The sources also include accounts of eyewitnesses, survivors, relatives of survivors, medical professionals, defectors, members of armed groups, healthcare professionals, lawyers and other affected communities.
The use of cluster munitions, so-called thermobaric bombs and chemical weapons by pro-Government forces, have caused scores of child casualties, the Commission says.
Additionally, children’s experiences in the conflict “have been deeply gendered,” the UN said in a news report.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by sexual violence, and the threat of rape has led to restrictions in their movements. Girls have been confined to their homes, removed from school or faced obstacles to access health care, the UN says.
Boys, particularly those 12 and over, have been arrested and kept in detention facilities, and targeted for recruitment by armed groups and militia.
“The younger ones are very good fighters. They fight with enthusiasm and are fearless. Fighters who are 14 -17 years old are on the frontline”, a person associated with an armed group told the authors.
The war has also had an impact on access to education, with more than 2.1 million children not regularly attending classes of any form.
The prolonged conflict has left many young Syrians with disabilities and displaced some five million children.
With U.S.-Iranian tensions giving rise to fears of another war breaking out in the Middle East, the report should be taken as a telling reminder of the devastation that war perpetrates. Already children in Yemen have suffered grievously from hunger, lack of healthcare as another war – fought along sectarian lines – rages on in the Arab region.
For its part, the UN Commission asks all sides to “commit in writing” to granting children special protection during wartime, in line with international law.
But such calls are likely to fall on deaf ears. The UN, which also failed the Syrians, has, though, consistently called for an end to the conflict. As for the world capitals including the Arab world and the warring countries, there is little hope that they would answer people’s calls for peace and democracy. It’s not just Syrians who have lost their dreams but the entire world has shown its helplessness and inability to save people from brutalities of yet another conflict.
