UN reports Syrian military raping and killing children ‘to prevent them from growing up to be demonstrators’
U.N. accuses Syria forces of crimes against humanity
The report by a U.N. Human Rights Council panel, released in Geneva, found that at least 256 children were killed by government forces between mid-March and early November, with some of them tortured to death.
“Torture was applied equally to adults and children,” said the report. “Numerous testimonies indicated that boys were subjected to sexual torture in places of detention in front of adult men.”
The report was compiled by a panel of independent experts who were not allowed into Syria. But the commission said that it interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, including defectors from Syria’s security forces, since September. It said that men and boys were sexually tortured at military detention facilities, and a 2-year-old girl was shot to death just to prevent her from growing up to be a demonstrator.
