Number of children killed in global conflicts tripled in 2023, says UN human rights chief

Three times as many children and twice as many women were killed in global conflicts in 2023 as in the previous year, while the overall number of civilian deaths rose by 72%, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Warring parties are increasingly “going beyond the limits of what is acceptable – and legal”, said UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

They showed “total contempt for each other and trampled on human rights,” he said. “Killing and injuring civilians has become a daily occurrence. The destruction of vital infrastructure has become a daily occurrence.”

“Children are being shot. Hospitals are being bombed. Whole communities are being shelled with heavy artillery. And all of this is being done with hateful, divisive and dehumanizing rhetoric.”

The UN human rights chief said his office had collected data suggesting that “the number of civilian deaths in armed conflicts increased by 72 percent” last year.

“Shockingly, the data shows that the proportion of women killed in 2023 has doubled and that of children has tripled compared to the previous year,” he said.

In the Gaza StripTurk said he was “appalled by the disregard for international human rights and international humanitarian law by the parties to the conflict” and by “unacceptable deaths and suffering”.

Since the outbreak of the war following Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, “more than 120,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured… as a result of the intense Israeli offensives.”

“Since Israel expanded its operations in Rafah in early May, nearly a million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced again, while aid delivery and humanitarian access have continued to deteriorate,” he said.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that Israel’s military offensive against the besieged enclave had killed more than 37,372 Palestinians and injured 85,452 since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilian and military casualties.

The need for help is increasing, but funding is not

Turk also referred to a number of other conflicts, including Ukrainethe Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.

And in SudanHe warned that the country was in the grip of a civil war that had lasted for over a year and was being “destroyed before our eyes by two warring parties and allied groups … (who) blatantly disregard the rights of their own people.”

This devastation comes as resources to support the growing number of people in need are dwindling.

“At the end of May 2024, the gap between humanitarian funding needs and available funds is $40.8 billion,” Turk said. “Aid appeals are funded on average at only 16.1 percent,” he said.

“Compare that to global military spending of nearly $2.5 trillion in 2023, a real increase of 6.8 percent over 2022,” Turk said, stressing that “this was the largest year-on-year increase since 2009.”

“War not only brings unbearable human suffering, it also comes at a high price,” he said.