“The children are psychologically crushed and tired.
When we do activities like singing with them, they
don’t respond at all. They don’t laugh like they
would normally. They draw images of children
being butchered in the war, or tanks, or the siege
and the lack of food.”
Teacher in the... besieged town of Madaya to Save the Children
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Reducing the humanitarian impact of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is a key priority for the United
Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), civil society and an increasing number of Member States.
The United Nations Secretary-General has expressly called on... parties to conflict to avoid the use in populated areas of
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humanitarian law (IHL), empirical evidence reveals a foreseeable and often widespread pattern of harm to civilians,
particularly from explosive weapons with wide-area effects.
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or anything within that zone. This makes their use in populated areas – such as towns, cities, markets and camps for
refugees and displaced persons or other concentrations of civilians – particularly problematic. The problems increase
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