Thousands of children have been killed in the Syria uprising since March 2011, according to a new global UN report on children and armed conflict.
Calling the toll "unbearable", the study said government forces and rebels were using boys and girls as "suicide bombers or human shields".
In total the study covered 21 countries where children are victims of violence.
Children in Syria were suffering "maybe the heaviest toll" in the world, said UN special representative Leila Zerrougui, who presented the findings.
"They are killed, they are maimed, they are recruited, they are detained, they are tortured", she told journalists in New York.
The report accused Syrian troops of torturing children suspected of having links to rebel groups.
But it said armed opposition groups, including the Free Syrian Army, were also using children, both in combat and in support roles such as transporting supplies and loading cartridges.
More than 93,000 people are thought to have died in the Syrian conflict, and some two million children are in need of assistance, according to official estimates.
However, the UN report also noted that thousands of children had been released worldwide by armed groups in 2012, and that Nepal and Sri Lanka had been taken off the shame list.
It added that action plans to end the recruitment of child soldiers had been launched with government forces and armed groups in South Sudan, Myanmar, the DRC and Somalia.
Source: BBC
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.