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Mahjul, the children without a name

2019-10-30T00:46:44.146Z


[OPINION] Octavio Pescador: In 2018, the highest number of deaths of minors was recorded since the conflict began. More than a thousand died in the crossfire, even in hundreds of installs ...


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Syrian men mourn the body of Jihad, fifteen, who died after an air raid by the government, in the city of Douma, controlled by the rebels, on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, on November 14, 2016. ( Credit: ABD DOUMANY / AFP / Getty Images)

Editor's Note: Octavio Pescador is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The opinions expressed in this column are exclusive to the author.

(CNN Spanish) - Those who have suffered the most in Syria's bloody civil war are children. The war has taken their childhood. Thousands of them have been separated from their family and thousands have lost their lives. Mahjul denominate those who cannot be identified.

In 2018, the highest number of deaths of minors was recorded since the conflict began. More than a thousand died in the crossfire, even in hundreds of medical or educational facilities that have been attacked by groups that dispute territorial control in northern Syria.

The nations surrounding Syria house more than two and a half million children. Many of them live in precarious conditions, with no possibility of attending school due to the lack of sources of income for their families, which exposes them to labor and other exploitation. The most vulnerable children are those who have been separated from their family. The Al Hol camp in northeastern Syria is home to more than 65,000 relatives of members of the Islamic State (IS) and inhabits at least a couple hundred orphans. So far in 2019, around 60 have died on the way to the camp that will now apparently cease to be guarded by Kurdish-American forces and will remain under Russian-Syrian control.

Nobody wants the orphans of the caliphate, the children procreated by the foreign soldiers of the self-styled Islamic State. They do not want to know anything the countries of origin of their parents in Africa, Asia and Europe mainly. In hospitals in northeastern Syria, infants, whose parents died or are being detained, many of them suffer from malnutrition, hypothermia and respiratory problems.

Kurdish volunteers and other nations who care for these children understand that it is not possible to attribute any responsibility to infants for the behavior of their parents. Perspective that is not universally shared, especially when children cease to be and because of indoctrination, coercion or need they become soldiers, martyrs or, as in Latin America, hitmen.

UNICEF has urged all parties to the conflict in the world to offer medical and humanitarian assistance to all children regardless of their origin. It is a call that falls on deaf ears, paradoxically commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations (Cdnnu) ratified by the majority (196) of the nations of the world except the United States and some others.

In a world of asymmetric, permanent, robotic war, where civilians are used as a shield, the fragility of arguing for the notion of just war is very clear. Who defines the enemy what is legitimate or legal to eliminate to protect the innocent and defend justice? And it is not that wars without drones and martyrs were fair, but today it is clear that the parameters of fair war action, or jus ad bellum , are much more difficult to define and fulfill.

Since 1978 the world has pledged to guarantee special rights to children and women of the civilian population during war conflicts: they will not be targets of the war parties and will not be persecuted, tortured, vexed, imprisoned, expelled from their home, denied medical attention , food, shelter and their human rights will be respected. But the world has failed to protect children. On the one hand, millions of them, who live in conflict zones, are subject to violations of their rights by combatants; and, on the other, the global leadership has not called to account those responsible for their calamities. How many times have we seen heartbreaking images and how many times have we seen those responsible respond to court? In some cases, the deaths of minors occur on the battlefield when they are recruited and / or forced to serve as soldiers. In others, they are victims as collateral damage. And, on occasion, they are the target of premeditated attacks, as we have seen sadly from Afghanistan to Yemen.

The sufferings of the nameless innocents concern us all. Whether at home or on the other side of the world, children (whoever they are) have inalienable rights as part of the species - framed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 - and special rights as set forth in the Cdnnu. And those rights include children who have no family or have been separated from their families.

The observance and promotion of children's rights distinguishes civilized nations. The commitment of a State to childhood tells us a lot about its leaders and the society that integrates it. When a government attempts against children, theirs or others, they are denigrated, and invariably the population reacts by denouncing injustice and the lack of humanity.

War in Syria

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-10-30

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