From the Gaza Strip to the DR Congo, violence involving child victims in war zones reached “unprecedented” levels in 2024, the UN has denounced in an annual report released yesterday (Thursday).

“In 2024, violence against children during armed conflict reached unprecedented levels, a staggering 25% increase in grave violations was recorded compared to 2023,” the report, signed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, stresses (p. 2).

The UN “verified” 41,370 grave violations involving child victims in 2024, including 36,221 committed last year and another 5,149 committed in previous years but confirmed in 2024. This is the highest number since a mechanism was created for this purpose almost 30 years ago. The tragic record beats the one recorded in the immediately preceding year, 2023, when there had already been a 21% increase compared to the immediately preceding year.

With more than 4,500 dead and over 7,000 injured, children continue to “pay the heaviest price for the unabated hostilities” on the planet, the UN laments.

Citing a large increase in the number of children subjected to multiple violations, the UN counts 22,495 children turned victims in armed conflict in 2024.

“The cries of these 22,495 innocent children, who should be learning to read or play ball, but instead have been forced to learn how to survive gunfire or bombardment, should keep us awake every night,” Virginia Gaba, the UN Special Envoy on the issue, ruled in a statement accompanying the report. “They should have woken us up. We are at a point of no return.”

Every year, the UN records in this report violations of children’s rights (0-18 years old) in some twenty war zones around the world and accompanies it, in the form of an annex, with a “list of shame” for these violations – killing or maiming of children, forced recruitment, abductions, denial of access to humanitarian aid, sexual violence…

Israel’s armed and security forces, which were included on the list last year, along with Hamas, remain on it.

The Palestinian territories, moreover, top the tragic ranking, with more than 8,500 serious violations, the vast majority of which are attributed to Israeli forces, including more than 4,800 in the Gaza Strip.

The figure includes 1,259 children killed, per numbers the UN says it has confirmed, and is still in the process of verifying another 4,470 dead children in 2024 in the Palestinian enclave, where the war that sparked the unprecedented Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, continues to rage.

The report also highlights the consequences of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, where more than 500 children were killed or injured by Israeli military fire last year (234 and 327 respectively).

After the Palestinian territories, DR Congo (over 4,000 serious violations), Somalia (over 2,500), Nigeria (nearly 2,500) and Haiti (over 2,200) are the countries where the most child rights violations were recorded in 2024.

In Haiti, where these violations increased by 490% in one year, the most powerful gang alliance, “Viv Ansanm” (“Living Together”), was added to the “list of shame” due to recruitment, killings and even gang rapes of children. This is the first time a Haitian criminal organization, “possibly the most brutal” of those that have plagued the Caribbean country, has been added to the list, a UN official commented.

Also new to the list is that of Colombia’s Clan del Golfo cartel, accused of child recruitment. More broadly, Colombia recorded an alarming increase in cases of this nature in 2024 (450) compared to the immediately preceding year (262).

Also remaining on the “list of shame” are the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, in a merciless war for over two years, and the Russian armed forces, due to their actions in the war in Ukraine, where the report recorded a 105% increase in serious violations of children’s rights between 2023 and 2024.