UN urges Somalia to protect children affected by armed conflict

The United Nations (UN) demanded that the Somalian Government protected the children prisoners, affected by the armed conflict in this country in the African Horn, media outlets reported today.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, who concluded a six-day visit to Somalia, highlighted that the work by the authorities in Mogadishu and Puntland, for their efforts to improve the conditions of the minors affected by the war.

We need, not only to get them out the death row. We have to support the children-protection agents and work with them, just in case those children need psycho-social treatment, if they need help to return to their copmmunities, said Zerrougui in a message issued today by the UN Misison in Somalia.

All we can do. We can work together in this and we guarantee to the Government and the authorities that we will do our best to support its initiative, she said.

Those statements by the UN special rapporteur were published when the security forces in Puntland captured dozens of children soldiers in March, after defeating an attempted incursion by members of the anti-Government organization Al-Shabaab.

Zerrougui received guarantees from the authorities in that territory that 12 children soldiers captured and later sentenced to death would not be executed.

Besides, she visited minors in detention centers in Garowe and Bossaso, and exhorted those responsible to treat children detainees as victims and not as criminals.