New York, SANA Syria had in vain sought to draw attention of the international community on the recruitment of Syrian children in areas controlled by armed terrorist organizations, particularly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic Front, Army of Islam, the Free Army and other armed groups that utilized children aged 5 to 15 years after having brainwashed them, prepared them to conduct Fatwas and become bearded criminals, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said Wednesday .
Al-Jaafari, during a Security Council session on Children and Armed Conflict, called for putting an end to policies of the states that have sponsored, financed, armed and trained terrorists through adopting efficient measures to hold the governments of these states accountable, and implement the UNSC related resolutions to fighting terrorism.
The armed terrorist organizations, during the past four years of the crisis in Syria, sought to deprive children from their childhood in an attempt to create an extremist environment, rich with takfiri and hatred sources al-Jaafari said.
In Syria, and at the (refugees) camps in the neighboring countries, recruitment of Syrian children have varied and acquired unprecedented bloody forms that get even children aged 4 years, Dr.al-Jaafari went on to say.
The armed terrorist organizations deprived children from education and substituted it with terrorist education, therefore these organizations stopped education in several areas until the governmental curriculum have been amended to go in line with the religious rules, as UNICEF mentioned he said, adding that more than 670,000 Syrian students had been deprived from education.
The Syrian Senior Diplomat pointed out that these terrorist organizations turned schools and hospitals into prisons, barracks and execution centers, asserting that since the beginning of the current year, 85 children were killed and 224 others were injured.
Al-Jaafari said that since the beginning of the crisis in the country, Syria has taken several measures, to enhance children protection, including all legal measures which prevent recruiting them in fighting operations, noting that the Syrian government issued a legislative decree on May 6th, 2013 for this purpose.
Al-Jaafari affirmed that in spite of the huge efforts exerted by the Syrian government to protect and immunize children against such devastating Wahhabi ignorant thought, it is known that tackling this sort of crimes can’t be done except through uprooting it collectively and honestly.
He called for stopping the policies of the countries that support terrorism financially and militarily, taking active measures to hold these governments accountable, implementing the relevant UN Security Council resolutions the latest of which /2199/ and to helping Syrian government to rehabilitate the children victims of such recruitment.
Al-Jaafari clarified that recruiting children, from other states, by armed organizations has become an international issue which requires finding solutions by uprooting organized terrorism that spread in many countries including Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Mali and Columbia, indicating that such terrorism is what the governments of those countries try to uproot every day, including Syrian government.
H. Zain/ Reem/ Barry