RNA - “Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence,” the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said in a Thursday statement.
“They have been killed, injured, abducted and forced to shoot and kill in one of the most brutal wars in recent history,” it added.
The statement, prepared by UNICEF’s representative in Iraq Peter Hawkins, noted that Daesh terrorists deliberately target and kill children in Mosul to punish families and deter them from fleeing.
“They are using children as a weapon of war to prevent people from fleeing,” the statement said. “This just highlights how indiscriminate and catastrophic this war is.”
According to the report, 1,075 Iraqi children have been killed and 1,130 wounded or maimed since Daesh occupied nearly a third of Iraq in 2014. Over the past six months alone, 152 children were killed and 255 others injured, it added.
Meanwhile, over 4,650 children have become separated from their families.
Iraqi children have also been forced to take part in violence as Daesh and other armed groups have recruited at least 231 children under the age of 18, the report added.
UNICEF’s report said that over one million children have had their educations put on hold as a result of either militant rule or displacement.
“The country’s future security and economic strength is determined by what is happening to its children today,” the report said.
Last October, Iraqi army forces launched a massive operation to liberate Mosul and they are currently close to recapture the entire city, which served as their de facto capital of Daesh in Iraq.
The battle is estimated to have killed and injured thousands of civilians and displaced over 850,000 people. On the city’s west, entire blocks have been flattened by clashes and airstrikes.
Taking back the Old City of Mosul, a densely populated warren of narrow alleyways on the western side of Mosul, is crucial to recapturing the whole of the northern city.
The United Nations says over 100,000 civilians are trapped in the neighborhood, with Daesh militants using them as human shields.
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