"Unspeakably Unacceptable"

A report has been tabled to the United Nations Security Council, by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Just in case the Security Council membership's own intelligence services haven't been adequately keeping them up to date, Mr. Ban outlined the long list of atrocities committed by the regime, its military and its citizen-military, the Shabiha, against defenceless, vulnerable children, Syrian children not of their own Shia sect of Islam.



Wait: it's not just the regime that has been horribly abusing Syrian children, for the rebel factions are also held to be guilty of human rights infractions, even if they represent a less odious order of brutality. The rebels are accused of recruiting children to aid them in their resourceful strikes against the Syrian military. Children taking part in combat and terror operations. In contrast to the regime's  horrific crimes against Syrian Sunni children, categories that include torture, rape, and "indiscriminate" attacks.

The Syrian government has taken countless children into custody. An object lesson in guilt by association. And the guilty must be punished. So children taken by the military are imprisoned, beaten, electric shock therapy applied to make them more loyal Syrian citizens, along with sexual violence including rape, mock executions, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. It is as though those great minds leading the country wracked their inventive minds to ensure that all methods of 'instruction' must be utilized.

Suspicion of links with armed groups fall upon children as young as ten, ensuring they will be detained and treated to the experience of arrest, isolation, torture, rape. Well yes, murder, that too and frequently. Mr. Ban's report warned the Security Council that the rebel groups too are suspected of having committed "the summary execution of children", though UN investigators haven't been enabled to enter many rebel-held areas due to the iffy security prevailing.

Burned truck that was attacked by a barrel bomb dropped from a Syrian forces helicopter, in Aleppo, Syria, Jan. 18, 2014. (file photo provided by Aleppo Media Center). Photo by AP

 

Despite which, he could state with confidence that "trends are believed to be much higher than the number of recorded cases". Despite the limited information at their disposal, the report claimed that "allegations were received that armed opposition groups also controlled detention facilities in which children perceived to be pro-government suffered ill treatment and torture". "Violations must come to an end now", Mr. Ban demanded.

The report stated the "disproportionate and indiscriminate" use of weapons and military tactics by government forces and associated militias "has resulted in countless killings and the maiming of children, and has obstructed children's access to education and health services". What's more, military forces have and continue to assault rebel-held areas of the country with deadly air strikes and artillery, subjecting those areas to blockades of food and medicine.

But the regime has kindly agreed that it may relax the blockade in Homs, releasing the skeletal starving women and children from the incarceration imposed upon them in bomb-shattered enclaves that once represented their neighbourhoods and homes. So all is not completely lost; the regime is prepared to demonstrate its true benevolent colours.