In its unanimously adopted resolution,
the 15-Member body also condemned all attacks deliberately targeting UN
personnel and others involved in humanitarian missions, urging States to bring
those responsible to justice.
Acknowledging that the most effect way to deal with violence against
civilians would be to eradicate armed conflict world-wide, the Council
nevertheless demanded that all parties involved in such conflicts comply
strictly with all the obligations of the Geneva Conventions, as well as the
earlier Hague Conventions.
Council reprobation was particularly directed at sexual violence, including
all acts of sexual exploitation, abuse and trafficking by personnel involved in
UN operations, for which it welcomed the zero-tolerance policy now in place.
In his latest report on the issue, released in December 2005,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that despite a sharper United Nations focus on
the protection of civilians in armed conflict, civilians continue to suffer
devastating “collateral damage,” as well as targeted violence, increasingly in
the form of sexual abuse, forced displacement, terrorism and extreme economic
deprivation, requiring ever-evolving protective mechanisms.
“In the five years since the adoption of Security Council resolution 1296
(2000) there have been new challenges to the safety and well-being of civilian
populations, and the tools that we have at our disposal to address these
concerns need to be developed accordingly,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in
his latest report on the matter, which the Council discussed today.
In his report, Mr. Annan points to the conflicts in northern Uganda, the
Darfur region of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as
examples of the forced displacement and violence against women.
The occupied Palestinian territory and Colombia were cited as examples of
complex situations that include terrorism, and Nepal and Myanmar as cases of
economic suffering resulting from armed
conflict.
28 April 2006 –
The United Nations Security Council today issued a ringing condemnation of
all violence committed against civilians during armed conflict, directing its
strongest language at attacks on women and children, and pledged to ensure that
all peace support operations employ all feasible measures to prevent the
scourge.
Security
Council