UNITED NATIONS — A newly released United Nations report has documented a record-breaking number of violations against children caught in conflict zones around the world last year, with government forces surpassing armed groups as the leading perpetrators for the first time in three decades of U.N. tracking.
The annual report from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres identified 38,558 total violations — a fourth consecutive yearly increase — affecting 24,174 children. About one-third of those children were girls, and thousands experienced more than one type of violation. The abuses ranged from killings and sexual violence to abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and blocking humanitarian aid from reaching children in need.
A blacklist included in the report names government forces from eight countries and 67 armed groups operating across 16 countries and territories.
“The scale and persistence of these violations demand more than acknowledgment — they demand resolve,” said Vanessa Frazier, the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, in an analysis accompanying the report.
Frazier called on all 193 U.N. member nations to face the report’s findings head-on and “recognize that protecting children is not an aspiration but an obligation, and that the decisions taken today will shape the futures they may or may not live to claim.”
Heading the 2025 blacklist is the Israeli military and its security forces, which were linked to 12,445 violations. Congo followed with 4,114, and Myanmar, Somalia, and armed groups in Nigeria each recorded more than 2,000 violations. Government forces from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Russia’s military operating in Ukraine were also included on the blacklist.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — the groups responsible for the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, and triggered the war in Gaza — also appear on the blacklist. The U.N. attributed 326 grave violations to Israeli settlers last year, and Guterres cautioned that settlers could be added to the blacklist if such attacks continue.
According to the report, government forces were identified as “the main perpetrators” behind 6,266 child deaths — a 34% jump compared to the previous year — along with 7,958 injuries.
The U.N. confirmed the deaths of 2,668 Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces in Gaza, along with 55 Palestinian children killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. An additional 4,588 reported child deaths in Gaza and injuries to 346 Israeli children are still being verified, the report noted.
Guterres said he was “appalled by the magnitude of grave violations against children” in Palestinian territories and Israel, “gravely alarmed by the staggering increase in grave violations” carried out by Israeli forces, and “deeply alarmed at the staggering rise in attacks carried out by Israeli settlers” against children, with no one being held accountable.
The U.N. chief called on Israel to work with the United Nations to establish a time-bound plan to stop the killing and injuring of children and to end attacks on schools and hospitals.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon pushed back sharply, accusing Guterres of blurring “the fundamental distinction between a democratic state fighting for its survival and murderous terrorist organizations” such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, rather than standing in solidarity with victims of the October 7, 2023, attacks. Danon said this would define Guterres’ legacy as “one of the greatest moral failures in the history of the United Nations.”
Frazier told reporters Thursday that several factors contributed to government forces accounting for more violations this year. She pointed to “the impunity that we are seeing towards international law” and a shift in modern warfare away from open battlefields toward densely populated civilian areas, where weapons like drones and wide-area explosives cause widespread harm.
“Children were impacted while escaping fighting, seeking food, water or medical care, and navigating areas heavily contaminated by explosive remnants of war, often contributing to life-long disabilities,” Frazier said.
The U.N. also verified that 6,607 children were recruited or used in armed conflict, with the highest numbers recorded in Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Somalia, and Colombia. Another 5,129 children were abducted, primarily in Nigeria, Congo, Somalia, Myanmar, and Mozambique. Additionally, 1,783 children were confirmed victims of rape or sexual violence, with Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, and Haiti reporting the most cases.
