GENEVA: Global conflicts killed three times as many children and twice as many women in 2023 than in the previous year, as overall civilian fatalities swelled 72 percent, the UN said Tuesday.
Warring parties were increasingly “pushing beyond boundaries of what is acceptable — and legal,” United Nations rights chief Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
They are showing “utter contempt for the other, trampling human rights at their core,” he said. “Killings and injuries of civilians have become a daily occurrence. Destruction of vital infrastructure a daily occurrence.”
“Children shot at. Hospitals bombed. Heavy artillery launched on entire communities. All along with hateful, divisive, and dehumanizing rhetoric.”
The UN rights chief said his office had gathered data indicating that last year, “the number of civilian deaths in armed conflict soared by 72 percent.”
“Horrifyingly, the data indicates that the proportion of women killed in 2023 doubled and that of children tripled, compared to the year prior,” he said.
In the Gaza Strip, Turk said he was “appalled by the disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law by parties to the conflict” and “unconscionable death and suffering.”
Since the war erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented attack inside Israel on October 7, he said “more than 120,000 people in Gaza, overwhelmingly women and children, have been killed or injured ... as a result of the intensive Israeli offensives.”
“Since Israel escalated its operations into Rafah in early May, almost one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced yet again, while aid delivery and humanitarian access deteriorated further,” he said.
Turk also pointed to a range of other conflicts, including in Ukraine, the Democratic republic of Congo and Syria.
And in Sudan, in the grips of a more than year-long civil war, he warned the country “is being destroyed in front of our eyes by two warring parties and affiliated groups ... (who have) flagrantly cast aside the rights of their own people.”
Such devastation comes as funding to help the growing numbers of people in need is dwindling.
“As of the end of May 2024, the gap between humanitarian funding requirements and available resources stands at $40.8 billion,” Turk said.
“Appeals are funded at an average of 16.1 percent only,” he said.
“Contrast this with the almost $2.5 trillion in global military expenditure in 2023, a 6.8 percent increase in real terms from 2022,” Turk said, stressing that “this was the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009.”
“In addition to inflicting unbearable human suffering, war comes with a hefty price tag,” he said.
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UN sees tripling of children killed in conflict in one year
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UN sees tripling of children killed in conflict in one year
- Warring parties were increasingly “pushing beyond boundaries of what is acceptable — and legal,” UN rights chief Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
- “Children shot at. Hospitals bombed. Heavy artillery launched on entire communities. All along with hateful, divisive, and dehumanizing rhetoric“
Pandas and ping-pong: Macron ending China visit on lighter note
CHENGDU: An ancient dam, pandas and ping-pong: French leader Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China on Friday in the southwestern city of Chengdu, striking a more relaxed note after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with his counterpart Xi Jinping a day earlier.
Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan province.
Macron, who was earlier filmed going for a morning jog near a lake alongside his security detail, was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century BC and continues to provide water to the Sichuan Basin plain.
The French president said he was “very touched” by the gesture, a departure from official protocol. He had previously hosted Xi in the Pyrenees — where he had spent time as a child — in May 2024.
Macron said the trip was a sign of mutual trust and a desire to “act together” at a time when international tensions are rising and trade imbalances are widening to China’s advantage.
The two presidential couples will part ways after a lunch, with the Macrons continuing the trip independently.
- Panda diplomacy -
Macron is meeting with students in Chengdu, China’s fourth-largest city with 21 million inhabitants that is considered one of the most culturally and socially open in China.
Brigitte Macron, meanwhile, will visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where two 17-year-old pandas, loaned to France in 2012 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy,” have just returned.
There, she will meet Yuan Meng, the first giant panda born in France in 2017, to whom she is “Godmother,” and who arrived in China in 2023.
The forests of Sichuan are home to numerous protected species, from snow leopards to giant pandas.
Through loans to zoos, China has made these bears emblematic ambassadors of its friendship with peoples from Japan to Germany.
Cubs born abroad are sent a few years later to Chengdu to participate in breeding and rehabilitation programs in the wild.
For his part, the French president will meet table tennis brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun, stars of the 2024 Paris Olympics, who are in China for the Mixed Team Table Tennis World Cup.
- Tentative Signals -
On Thursday in Beijing, the French president urged his Chinese counterpart to work toward ending the war in Ukraine and to correct the trade imbalances with France and Europe.
China regularly calls for peace talks and respect for the territorial integrity of all countries, but has never condemned Russia for its 2022 invasion.
Western governments accuse Beijing of providing Russia with crucial economic support for its war effort, notably by supplying it with military components for its defense industry, something Beijing denies.
Emmanuel Macron’s call for increased Chinese investment in France appears to have been heeded.
A letter of intent to this effect was signed on Thursday, with Xi Jinping stating his readiness to “increase reciprocal investments” for a “fair trading environment.”
Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan province.
Macron, who was earlier filmed going for a morning jog near a lake alongside his security detail, was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century BC and continues to provide water to the Sichuan Basin plain.
The French president said he was “very touched” by the gesture, a departure from official protocol. He had previously hosted Xi in the Pyrenees — where he had spent time as a child — in May 2024.
Macron said the trip was a sign of mutual trust and a desire to “act together” at a time when international tensions are rising and trade imbalances are widening to China’s advantage.
The two presidential couples will part ways after a lunch, with the Macrons continuing the trip independently.
- Panda diplomacy -
Macron is meeting with students in Chengdu, China’s fourth-largest city with 21 million inhabitants that is considered one of the most culturally and socially open in China.
Brigitte Macron, meanwhile, will visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where two 17-year-old pandas, loaned to France in 2012 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy,” have just returned.
There, she will meet Yuan Meng, the first giant panda born in France in 2017, to whom she is “Godmother,” and who arrived in China in 2023.
The forests of Sichuan are home to numerous protected species, from snow leopards to giant pandas.
Through loans to zoos, China has made these bears emblematic ambassadors of its friendship with peoples from Japan to Germany.
Cubs born abroad are sent a few years later to Chengdu to participate in breeding and rehabilitation programs in the wild.
For his part, the French president will meet table tennis brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun, stars of the 2024 Paris Olympics, who are in China for the Mixed Team Table Tennis World Cup.
- Tentative Signals -
On Thursday in Beijing, the French president urged his Chinese counterpart to work toward ending the war in Ukraine and to correct the trade imbalances with France and Europe.
China regularly calls for peace talks and respect for the territorial integrity of all countries, but has never condemned Russia for its 2022 invasion.
Western governments accuse Beijing of providing Russia with crucial economic support for its war effort, notably by supplying it with military components for its defense industry, something Beijing denies.
Emmanuel Macron’s call for increased Chinese investment in France appears to have been heeded.
A letter of intent to this effect was signed on Thursday, with Xi Jinping stating his readiness to “increase reciprocal investments” for a “fair trading environment.”
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