Vatican newspaper deplores use of child soldiers
June 24, 2021
L’Osservatore Romano has devoted brief but prominent front-page coverage to the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, which was released on June 21.
“The report confirmed that violations were committed against 19,379 children in 21 conflicts in 2020, with the greatest number of violations committed in Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen,” the Reuters news agency reported. “It found that 8,521 children were used as soldiers last year, while another 2,674 children were killed and 5,748 injured in various conflicts.”
The Vatican newspaper commented:
Each number corresponds to a name, a face, to a life that stopped on the battlefield without having seen a school desk. We are not talking about statistics, but about 8,521 children sacrificed. . . . They are, however, only those whom it was possible to identify. The whole truth is much more serious, and the data released by the UN reveal only a partial feature of a much more tragic reality.
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