Statmenet of Lithuania during the Interactive Dialogue with Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
16 March 2022, 49th session of the Human Rights Council
We thank Madam Gamba for the report, as well as for the recent statement on situation in Ukraine, published jointly with the Special Representative on Violence against Children.
Children all over the world have the same right to life, safety, health, family, and education. Brutal conflicts affect every civilian, but children suffer the most.
Russia is fully responsible for the bloodshed of innocent people, including children, and for millions lives destroyed in Ukraine and will be held to account.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which started already in 2014, has a tremendous effect on children. Currently ongoing brutal military aggression, with the active involvement of Belarus, already claimed the lives of at least 50 children around 78 according to Ukrainian sources, and this number continues to grow. More than a million of children already fled their country to seek safety and protection. They are a part of the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two.
Russia cynically attacks residential buildings, schools, orphanages, and hospitals. Children are forced to flee by themselves and are under unimaginable stress. Peaceful population in the territories under attack [of siege] by the Russian Federation suffer lacking basic supplies – food, water, shelter and medicines. This is not the childhood a child deserves.
As rightly stated in your statement, “it is not too late to save this generation of children from the scourge of war”.
We demand Russia to immediately cease hostilities and unconditionally withdraw from the entire territory of Ukraine.
Madam Gamba, as strong condemnation is not enough anymore, what concrete action the international community could take to protect the lives and livelihoods of thousands of Ukrainian children?
