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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
Human Rights Council Press conference: Commission of Inquiry launches report on children in Syria
Children in Syria have been “robbed of their childhood” and forced to “endure numerous violations” in more than eights years of conflict, according to the latest report by the independent body set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council to investigate violations during the civil war in Syria.
“Children have been denied the protection they are entitled to under international law, and victimized on multiple levels” said Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, on behalf of the three-member group. “Countless girls and boys have been killed and maimed in attacks carried out by all parties to the conflict,” he added.
The 25-page report, released today in Geneva, is entitled “They have erased the dreams of my children: children's rights in the Syrian Arab Republic”, and notes that attacks on civilian infrastructure have had an acute impact on physical health, in particular for those children who suffer from disabilities because of the war.
“Boys as young as six have been recruited to participate in hostilities by warring parties,” Mr. Pinheiro noted as he read one shocking part of the report, “while rape and sexual violence have been used against girls to punish, humiliate and instill fear. In detention, children have been used to extract confession from their parents, subjected to torture and ill-treatment, while consistently denied from accessing food, water and medical care.”
The report says that children’s right to education in Syria has been denied by all parties to the conflict as warring parties have looted and vandalized educational establishments and used schools for military purposes.
The conflict has left an enormous trauma on the physical and mental well-being of an entire generation of Syrian girls and boys but also destroyed the social, economic and cultural fabric required for Syrian communities to start healing, the report states. “Children are dying - many lack civil documentation and in the case of other camps for displaced civilians, are effectively stateless, with the majority of them having missed school for a number of years,” Pinheiro noted.
“Young children being made to hang other young children, to execute them in that way” said Karen Abuzayd, a member of the Commission, while calling attention to the difficulty of pursuing such crimes or tackling the issue of impunity. “Are the children responsible for war crimes? How are we going to handle this?”, she asked.
More than five million children have been displaced by the conflict in Syria, and have become increasingly vulnerable to violations as a result. These children are living in situations of protracted displacement, often with severed family ties, and are worryingly “being displaced again as the fighting has escalated,” according to Hanny Megally, also a member of the Commission.
The number of displaced children “has gone up to about 700,000 over the last ten days or so, which shows the level of escalation in the violence and there is a real concern that preventable deaths are going to be continuing to happen,” Megally said.
Among the recommendations to the Government of Syria and other key actors, the Commission urges respect for the special protection children are entitled to under international humanitarian and human rights law, and to ensure accountability for violations that have occurred. The Commission also makes a series of recommendations aimed at increasing the support for children who have suffered abuses.
- Wide shot: exterior, flag alley, Palais des Nations, United Nations Geneva.
- Medium shot: podium
- Wide shot, press briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (EN) Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson, Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: “The report covers multiple violations in the period from September 2011 to October 2019. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, children have been denied the protection they are entitled to under international law, and victimized on multiple levels. Countless girls and boys have been killed and maimed in attacks carried out by all parties to the conflict.”
- Medium shot: podium
- Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson, Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: “Boys as young as six have been recruited to participate in hostilities by warring parties, while rape and sexual violence have been used against girls to punish, humiliate and instil fear. In detention, children have been used to extract confession from their parents, subjected to torture and ill-treatment, while consistently denied from accessing food, water and medical care.”
- Wide shot, press briefing room, journalists
- SOUNDBITE (EN) Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson, Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: “Children are dying- many lack civil documentation and in the case of other camps for displaced civilians, are effectively stateless, with the majority of them having missed school for a number of years.”
- Close-up: journalist
- SOUNDBITE (EN) Karen Abuzayd, Member of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: “Sometimes there are reports even of young children being made to hang other young children to execute them in that way. So again are the children responsible for war crimes? How are we going to handle this?”
- Close-up: camera
- SOUNDBITE (EN) Hanny Megally, Member of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: “Children have been displaced as have their families several times to get to Idlib and now they are being displaced again as the fighting has escalated. I think the number overall has gone up to about 700,000 over the last ten days or so which shows the level of escalation in the violence and there is a real concern that preventable deaths are going to be continuing to happen.”
- Wide shot: press room
- Medium shot: podium
- Medium shot: journalists, cameras
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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