In Gaza, dozens of children are injured every day while in Burma, more and more of them are entering the army

In armed conflicts, children are often targeted, as in Gaza, but sometimes they also take part in the fighting, as in Burma, where armed groups need more and more fighters.

With more than 37,000 deaths, 40% of them children, the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas will go down in recent history as one of the deadliest conflicts for children. UNICEF explained, in November 2023, that the enclave was the most dangerous place in the world for a child. In Burma, several reports warn of the increasingly significant presence of minors within combat groups, both within the Burmese army serving the government, and among its opponents, the ethical armies.

Nearly 21,000 children missing in Gaza

According to the latest tally from the NGO Save the Children, nearly 21,000 children are missing in the Gaza Strip. They are either buried under rubble or buried in anonymous graves, or prisoners or have lost contact with their families.

In the spring of 2024, the UN already explained that more children had been killed in Gaza since October 2023 than in four years of conflicts across the world. If Gaza is an open-air cemetery, it is first and foremost a cemetery for children.

In recent months, several images of injured, killed or crippled children have been seen. This horror deeply marks humanitarians, even those accustomed to war zones. There have never been so many members of the United Nations who spoke to the press with lumps in their throats, sometimes on the verge of tears. The Unicef ​​spokesperson explained, a few months ago, how children were dying of dehydration in the enclave. Before him, it was the spokesperson for human rights who spoke with difficulty of these parents who, now, mark the name of their child with a pen on their bodies to be able to identify him, if he were to be kill.

On June 25, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the agency for Palestinian refugees, gave a chilling new figure on child amputations. “For children who lose one or both legs, we are at 10 per day. That means about 2,000 children amputated, after more than 260 days of this war and that does not take into account the children who have lost a hand or an arm.”

There are therefore thousands of small amputees, who should in theory change their prostheses regularly, be operated on several times during their growth and have medical and psychological monitoring. None of this is possible today in Gaza. Humanitarians are used to talking about a lost generation in major disasters and the term has never been more appropriate than in Gaza.

In Burma, children are enlisted in the armies

For several decades, Burma has been ranked as one of the countries in the world with the highest rate of child soldiers. A United Nations report, dating from 2002, even placed it at the top of the ranking with 20% of the personnel of the Burmese army, the Tatmadaw, represented by minors.

Children are recruited, sometimes by trickery or force, but also on a voluntary basis. They undergo four months of initial training during which they often have to witness acts of cruelty towards civilian populations, according to several testimonies from former recruits. The practice is also present among ethical armies, where several of them also practice compulsory enrollment quotas, with one son per family having to serve in the local army.

Boys from the age of 13 are likely to be recruited for combat, but also many for menial tasks, such as carrying water and provisions, for infantry battalions, which carry out long marches in the jungle. They are sometimes required to go first to detect possible antipersonnel mines, hoping not to detonate them thanks to their light weight. On October 5, 2020, two teenagers were killed by mines under orders from the Tatmadaw during operations between Burmese soldiers and the Arakan Army, in the northwest of the country.

The country is today plunged into a situation of quasi-civil war, particularly on the borders with India, China and Thailand. After a brief improvement under the government of Aung San Suu Kyi from 2011, since the coup d’état of February 1, 2021, the situation is once again catastrophic for miners.

The Burmese army lacks personnel and suffers from massive desertions, since this is one of the important axes of the military strategy of its adversaries. Above all, the majority of schools have been closed since 2021, so young people have no future prospects and a lot of free time, which pushes them to get involved. They also feel that a reversal of the situation is possible and that all efforts and sacrifices are justified. This is an additional factor for these teenagers who want to serve in the liberation of their country from the yoke of the Burmese army, once and for all.