UN report violates neutrality, lacks credibility & objectivity

It is regrettable that the UN and its bodies have been subjugated by the US and its allies to be partner in the global conspiracy against Syria. In fact, the UN bodies have become one of the tools used by the enemies of Syria to press ahead with violence and bloodshed of Syrian people ignoring the brutal crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups against Syrian citizens. Some international organizations have failed to meet their duties and sometimes attempted to politicize their mandate to swerve it away from its humanitarian dimension. The recent report submitted by UN Secretary General’s Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui constitutes a blatant violation of impartiality, objectivity and credibility.

In her report, Zerrougui completely ignored the Syrian government’s cooperation with her and her team and the UNICEF office in Syria despite the fact that other UN officials repeatedly admitted that the Syrian government has closely cooperated with the UNICEF since the beginning of the crisis and facilitated its relief missions and humanitarian mandate.

Zerrougui’s report includes paragraphs that showed clear bias against Syria. The most prominent of these missteps is ignoring the cooperation which the Syrian government showed to Zerrougui’s team and the UNICEF office in Syria.

The report ignored the takfiri terrorism which pervaded the country streaming from Arab and regional countries and shed the blood of innocents, demolished infrastructure and practiced coercive displacement on sectarian bases. This has forced many citizens to be displaced inside the country. The report also completely overlooked the grave violations against the Syrian children in the camps in neighbouring countries, most importantly the attempts at recruiting them to fight in Syria along a number of takfiri and terrorist organizations operating in various Syrian areas. Zerrougui also ignored in her report any reference to the worrying and serious cases of organized crime, child labor and sexual abuse that are spreading among the Syrian children in these camps, especially under what is called sex Jehad. The report’s rejection of talking about the suffering of children in the camps of resort encourages acts that target the children and minors, including the sex abuse under many mottos, based on corrupt fatwas like “sex jihad.”

Zerrougui’s report also bypassed any mention of the systematic destruction of Syria’s infrastructure including schools, hospitals and health centers by the takfiri groups and their blocking of the delivery of medicine and vaccines, particularly polio vaccines to Syrian children.

If the report was impartial and objective, it would not ignore the grave impact of the unfair and illegitimate economic sanctions imposed by some countries on the Syrian people which are considered, according to the international humanitarian law, an involvement in the war crimes committed by these countries against the Syrian people. These sanctions are a flagrant violation of the right to live as they deprive the Syrian people and children of their basic rights to food, medicine, vaccines and the necessary medical equipment. The sanctions caused development project chances to dwindle and impeded the official and private institutions’ duty in meeting the citizens’ needs, in addition to leaving an impact on the efforts of the UN humanitarian agencies operating in Syria. These sanctions provoked dangerous repercussions as they targeted the Syrian people’s livelihood, health and education situation and many of their other basic rights.

The report didn’t refer to the advanced steps of Syria in the field of the child rights, whether before the crisis or after the outbreak of it, as Syria exerts huge efforts, in spite of the crisis burdens, to work for the service of children, whether in relief, education or vaccination against polio which reached more than 2.5 million children under five.

For millions of Syrian children, the innocence of childhood has been replaced by the cruel realities created by the armed terrorist groups. Hunger, homelessness and terror have replaced school for many children, because many schools were occupied by some of al-Qa’eda linked terrorist groups.

K.Q.