After seven years of war in Syria, the United Nations has one thing to say: Stop the war on children.
FILE - This file image from video made available Sept. 3, 2012, shows Syrian medics helping a wounded child at the Dar al-Shifa hospital, in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo, File)
The numbers speak for themselves.
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After seven years of war in Syria, the United Nations has one thing to say: Stop the war on children.
The numbers speak for themselves.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has tracked the war since it began, has documented as many as 19,800 children killed since the conflict began in March 2011. A study published in the Lancet in January shows that children are increasingly bearing the brunt of the fighting, making up 23 percent of the civilian casualties in 2016, compared to 8.9 percent in 2011. The Lancet study reported at least 13,800 children have been killed from 2011 through 2016.
Save the Children, in a report issued on Monday, said that its partners on the ground have described an "apocalyptic" bombing campaign that has targeted homes, more than 60 schools, 24 hospitals and other medical facilities and forced thousands to live in underground shelters.
Calls for cease-fires and humanitarian pauses have been ignored and the few aid convoys allowed into eastern Ghouta have had medical supplies removed before they depart for the rebel-held enclave. "Yet again, the words of world leaders are ringing hollow to children and parents trapped in basements or stuck in squalid camps," the children's aid group said. De-escalation zones have "actually become escalation zones."
Cappelaere of UNICEF called for "the senseless war to stop for the sake of children."
"However, when I speak to the ... boys and girls and hear their dreams and aspirations and what they want to become in life and when I hear their resilience and their determination to fight for a better, brighter future I do very much believe that Syria has a future ahead," he said.
Of Syria's estimated 10 million children, 8.6 million are now in dire need of assistance, up from about half a million after the first year of war. Nearly 6 million children are displaced or living as refugees, and about 2.5 million are out of school. Over 3 million children are exposed to the hazards of unexploded ordinance and land mines, even in areas where the conflict has died down. Some 40 percent of those killed by land mines are children.
While the U.N. has verified about 2,500 children killed between 2014 and 2017, it says the actual numbers are far higher.
FILE In this file photo released Feb. 21, 2016, by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a woman carries a child injured in a triple blast claimed by the Islamic State group, at a hospital in Sayyida Zeinab, a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus. (SANA via AP File)
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has tracked the war since it began, has documented as many as 19,800 children killed since the conflict began in March 2011. A study published in the Lancet in January shows that children are increasingly bearing the brunt of the fighting, making up 23 percent of the civilian casualties in 2016, compared to 8.9 percent in 2011. The Lancet study reported at least 13,800 children have been killed from 2011 through 2016.
And in the first two months of 2018, more than 1,000 children have been killed or injured, according to the U.N.
"The war is going on unabated with an incredible, unacceptably brutal impact upon children," Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa told The Associated Press. "This is a war on children. ...Thousands of children have been killed, continue to be killed. Tens of thousands of children have been seriously injured. Many of them are going to carry scars for life. Thousands of children have been disabled by war."
And despite moves to establish "de-escalation" zones by the parties to the conflict, the violence has only worsened. Nearly 400,000 of civilians are trapped in the rebel-held Damascus suburbs of eastern Ghouta as the government and allied forces wage a relentless bombing and shelling campaign to retake the area.
FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2014 file photo, a Syrian Kurdish refugee from the Kobani area carries an injured child at a camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border. In 2018, after seven years of war in Syria, the United Nations has one thing to say: Stop the war on children. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
Save the Children, in a report issued on Monday, said that its partners on the ground have described an "apocalyptic" bombing campaign that has targeted homes, more than 60 schools, 24 hospitals and other medical facilities and forced thousands to live in underground shelters.
Further north, hundreds of thousands in the Kurdish district of Afrin are also squeezed amid a Turkish offensive to expel a U.S.-backed local Kurdish militia.
"For hundreds of thousands of children in Syria, this is the worst point of the conflict so far," Save the Children said in its report.
FILE - This Oct 26, 2016 frame grab from video provided by Muaz al-Shami, Syrian Revolution Network, an opposition activist media organization, shows a child in a hospital, after airstrikes killed over 20 people, in the rebel-held village of Hass, Syria. In 2018, after seven years of war in Syria, the United Nations has one thing to say: Stop the war on children. Of Syria’s estimated 10 million children, 8.6 million are now in dire need of assistance, nearly 6 million children are displaced or living as refugees and about 2.5 million are out of school. (Muaz al-Shami, Syrian Revolution Network, via AP, File)
Calls for cease-fires and humanitarian pauses have been ignored and the few aid convoys allowed into eastern Ghouta have had medical supplies removed before they depart for the rebel-held enclave. "Yet again, the words of world leaders are ringing hollow to children and parents trapped in basements or stuck in squalid camps," the children's aid group said. De-escalation zones have "actually become escalation zones."
In its report, Save the Children said the number of people displaced has grown by 60 percent since the de-escalation zones were announced last July, with up to 250 children fleeing their homes every hour.
FILE - This file photo released Feb. 21, 2018 provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Ghouta Media Center, shows two Syrian children who were wounded during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces, at a makeshift hospital, in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, Syria. (Ghouta Media Center via AP, File)
Cappelaere of UNICEF called for "the senseless war to stop for the sake of children."
In a reminder of the horrific toll of Syria's civil war, an exhibit in Beirut of poetry written by Syrian refugee children and illustrated by Lebanese and Syrian artists captured the pain the children grapple with.
Ola Mohammed, an 11-year-old girl from the province Rif near Damascus, seemed haunted by images of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy whose body was washed ashore in Turkey in 2016 after the boat he and his parents were fleeing in capsized and came to represent the horrific toll of Syria's civil war. "I blame you, oh Sea ... Why did you swallow my friend?" she wrote.
Noting that during seven years of war, not a single party to the conflict has shown any respect for the "sacred principle of protection of children," Cappelaere said that he fears for the future of Syria.
FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2016 file photo, Syrian children, who were displaced with their families from eastern Aleppo, play in the village of Jibreen south of Aleppo, Syria.(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
"However, when I speak to the ... boys and girls and hear their dreams and aspirations and what they want to become in life and when I hear their resilience and their determination to fight for a better, brighter future I do very much believe that Syria has a future ahead," he said.
At a conference Monday organized by UNICEF in Beirut, Bassel Mokdad, a 17-year old paralyzed from the waist down by an injury he suffered in Syria's southern Daraa province in 2013, performed on his violin for an audience of mostly journalists.
FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2016 file photo, a Syrian child, evacuated from Aleppo, sits in a field hospital bed near Idlib, Syria. In 2018, after seven years of war in Syria, the United Nations has one thing to say: Stop the war on children. Of Syria’s estimated 10 million children, 8.6 million are now in dire need of assistance, nearly 6 million children are displaced or living as refugees and about 2.5 million are out of school.(AP Photo, File)
Mokdad, who now uses a wheelchair, said after fighting depression and a brief period of self-imposed isolation following his injury, he decided to embrace the future and find a goal. If he can't make a musical career, he will try photography, he said.
"You can say I forgot my war injury. I am walking around even better than a walking person," he said. "I now have a goal and I am going to pursue it."
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — With graduations looming, student protesters doubled down early Thursday on their discontent of the Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the country, with multiple arrests made at campuses in Massachusetts and California as universities have become quick to call in the police to end the demonstrations and make arrests.
At Emerson College in Boston, 108 people were arrested and four police officers suffered injuries that were not life-threatening at an encampment, Boston police said Thursday. Those arrested were expected to appear in Boston Municipal Court.
Another 93 people were arrested Wednesday night during a protest at the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Police Department said. There were no reports of injuries.
While grappling with growing protests from coast to coast, schools have the added pressure of May commencement ceremonies. At Columbia University in New York, students defiantly erected an encampment where many are set to graduate in front of families in just a few weeks.
Columbia continued to negotiate with students after several failed attempts — and over 100 arrests — to clear the encampment, but several universities ousted demonstrators Wednesday, swiftly turning to law enforcement when protests bubbled up on their campuses.
Earlier Wednesday, officers at the University of Texas at Austin aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide.
Tensions were already high at USC after the university canceled a planned commencement speech by the school’s pro-Palestinian valedictorian, citing safety concerns. After scuffles with police early Wednesday, a few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained one by one without incident later in the evening.
Officers encircled the dwindling group sitting in defiance of an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested. Beyond the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched as helicopters buzzed overhead. The school closed the campus.
In Texas, hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and holding batons — bulldozed into protesters, at one point sending some tumbling into the street. Officers pushed their way into the crowd and made 34 arrests at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was in the push-and-pull when an officer yanked him backward to the ground, video shows. The station confirmed that the photographer was arrested. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff.
Dane Urquhart, a third-year Texas student, called the police presence and arrests an “overreaction," adding that the protest “would have stayed peaceful” if the officers had not turned out in force.
“Because of all the arrests, I think a lot more (demonstrations) are going to happen,” Urquhart said.
Police left after hours of efforts to control the crowd, and about 300 demonstrators moved back in to sit on the grass and chant under the school's iconic clock tower.
In a statement Wednesday night, the university's president, Jay Hartzell, said: “Our rules matter, and they will be enforced. Our University will not be occupied."
North of USC, students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, were barricaded inside a building for a third day, and the school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.
Harvard University in Massachusetts had sought to stay ahead of protests this week by limiting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permission for tents and tables. That didn't stop protesters from setting up a camp with 14 tents Wednesday following a rally against the university’s suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its monthslong conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus as graduation nears, partly prompting a heavier hand from universities.
At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while over 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University.
Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier Wednesday. University President Minouche Shafik had set on Tuesday a midnight deadline to reach an agreement on clearing an encampment, but the school extended negotiations for another 48 hours.
On a visit to campus Wednesday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called on Shafik to resign “if she cannot bring order to this chaos.”
“If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard,” he said.
On Wednesday evening, a Columbia spokesperson said rumors that the university had threatened to bring in the National Guard were unfounded. “Our focus is to restore order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will,” said Ben Chang, Columbia’s vice president for communications.
Columbia graduate student Omer Lubaton Granot, who put up pictures of Israeli hostages near the encampment, said he wanted to remind people that there were more than 100 hostages still being held by Hamas.
“I see all the people behind me advocating for human rights," he said. “I don’t think they have one word to say about the fact that people their age, that were kidnapped from their homes or from a music festival in Israel, are held by a terror organization.”
Harvard law student Tala Alfoqaha, who is Palestinian, said she and other protesters want more transparency from the university.
“My hope is that the Harvard administration listens to what its students have been asking for all year, which is divestment, disclosure and dropping any sort of charges against students,” she said.
On Wednesday about 60 tents remained at the Columbia encampment, which appeared calm. Security remained tight around campus, with identification required and police setting up metal barricades.
Columbia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students would remain at the encampment and they would make it welcoming, banning discriminatory or harassing language.
Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists in various locations including Joey Cappelletti, Will Weissert, Larry Lage, Steve LeBlanc, Dave Collins, Jim Salter, Haven Daley, Jesse Bedayn, John Antczak, Julie Walker and Joseph Krauss.
A row of Palestinian flags are seen on the fence at the pro-Palestinians demonstration encampment at Columbia University in New York on Wednesday April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
University of Southern California protesters fight with University Public Safety officers as they try to remove tents at the campus' Alumni Park during a pro-Palestinian occupation on Wednesday, April 24, 2024 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to the media on the Lower Library steps on Columbia University's campus in New York on Wednesday April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Students and press look on as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to the media on the Lower Library steps on Columbia University's campus in New York, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Tents erected at the pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment at Columbia University in New York, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
A University of Southern California protester, right, confronts a University Public Safety officer at the campus' Alumni Park during a pro-Palestinian occupation on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
A University of Southern California protester is detained by USC Department of Public Safety officers during a pro-Palestinian occupation at the campus' Alumni Park on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
A pro-Palestinian protester, who declined to give her name, leads chants at the University of Texas, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Texas state troopers in riot gear try to break up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
University of Southern California protesters push and shove University Public Safety officers as tempers get heated during a pro-Palestinian occupation on the University of Southern California campus Wednesday, April 24, 2024 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
A University of Southern California protester is detained by USC Department of Public Safety officers during a pro-Palestinian occupation at the campus' Alumni Park on Wednesday, April 24, 2024 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Texas state troopers march down Speedway during a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Demonstrators chant at a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
State troopers try to break up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas Wednesday April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up on an increasing number of college campuses following last week's arrest of more than 100 demonstrators at Columbia University. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
University of Texas police officers arrest a man at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus, Wednesday April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
