About the author(s):
Bethany Ellis is the Global Advocacy Advisor for Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict – a network of 16 humanitarian and human rights organizations seeking to end violations against children and protect their rights in war. She leads the network’s global advocacy efforts to strengthen and support implementation of the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) agenda, leading Watchlist’s engagement with the UN and its Member States, particularly the Security Council. Bethany authored Watchlist’s May 2024 policy note Explosive Weapons and the Children and Armed Conflict Agenda. Prior to joining Watchlist, Bethany conducted research and policy analysis for various global human rights organizations on issues relating to human trafficking, education in emergencies, and the rights of refugee and migrant children. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree in international political economy from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
This post forms part of the Beyond Compliance Symposium: How to Prevent Harm and Need in Conflict, featured across Articles of War and Armed Groups and International Law. The introductory post can be found here. The symposium invites reflection on the conceptualisation of negative everyday lived experiences of armed conflict, and legal and extra-legal strategies that can effectively address harm and need.
The use of explosive weapons is widely recognised as a leading source of harm to civilians in conflict. In fact, when these types of weapons are used in populated areas, as much as 90 percent of victims are civilians. From immediate risk of death and injury to the toll bombardment takes on mental health and well-being to long-term disruption of essential services when infrastructure is destroyed – the use of explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA) has devastating consequences for those living in warzones. While all those living in areas where bombs are dropping are at risk, the risk for children is heightened.
Each year, thousands of children are killed or grievously injured by explosive weapons in wars – yet all too often the specific harms to children are overlooked and their needs are inadequately addressed by efforts to prevent or mitigate harm to civilians. Due to their specific stage of physical, mental, and psychosocial development, children experience unique and severe harm from explosive weapons in the short and long term. Available tools such as the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (the EWIPA Declaration) and the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) mandate, can be better leveraged by States to prevent and mitigate harm to children living in war.
Explosive Weapons and Child-Specific Risks from Blast Injuries
Explosive weapons have played a role in patterns of serious harm to children in war – including the “six grave violations” against children in armed conflict identified by the United Nations. In an analysis of publicly available UN data on grave violations against children from 2012 to 2022, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict found over 30,000 UN-verified instances of children killed or maimed that were expressly attributed to explosive weapons. (In this context, “killing and maiming” refers to the grave violation as defined by the UN’s Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism.) According to the UN Secretary-General’s 2024 annual report on children and armed conflict, explosive weapons in populated areas continued to be a leading cause of child casualties in 2023. In 13 situations monitored by the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) mandate, at least 60 percent of verified child casualties were explicitly attributed to explosive weapons. Throughout this blog, the term “casualties” refers to both death and injury.
Children make up a large proportion of the civilian casualties from explosive weapons – especially from mines and explosive remnants of war. For example, according to UN verified reporting, children made up 44 per cent of the 7,607 people killed in strikes on residential buildings in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 2 September 2024 – with the children between the ages of five and nine being the most affected age group. In addition, children experience different types of injuries than adults who are affected by blasts and these injuries are more likely to be fatal. This blog defines blast injuries as “the injuries caused by the multiple effects of explosive weapons and the ‘overpressure’ created by them,” consistent with Save the Children’s 2019 report on blast injuries.
A child’s age, gender, disability, and other characteristics are likely to impact where they are when a blast occurs, how they will react, and what physical or mental harm they experience. One study on casualties in the Syrian conflict found that children were up to seven times more likely to die from blast injuries than adults. The areas and proportion of children’s bodies impacted in a blast, the severity of the injuries children sustain, and the resulting complex health care requirements to treat children, all contribute to children’s fatality rates. According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, between 2011 and 2020, 28 to 38 percent of all child casualties from landmines or explosive remnants of war resulted in fatalities each year.
A 2017 review of existing literature on pediatric blast injuries by Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies observed distinct injury patterns among children caught up in blasts. For example, children are overwhelmingly likely to experience penetrating injuries to the face, head, and upper body. Children tend to experience multiple injuries, and some injuries, such as burns, affect a significantly larger portion of their bodies than adults. Infants and very young children also have thinner skin than older children and adults, making them more likely to experience severe burns.
Even trained medical staff can lack the specialised training, experience, and equipment for dealing with children with blast injuries in armed conflict. For example, the normal values for breathing rate, heart rate, and approximate blood volume differ for children than adults and among age groups and should be known by first responders treating an injured child. The Pediatric Blast Injury Field Manual, developed by the Pediatric Blast Injury Partnership led by Imperial College London and Save the Children, is one practical tool that seeks to address this gap. Children who survive blasts still face complex, long-term recovery and rehabilitation needs, which are frequently difficult to meet in resource-scarce conflict or post-conflict settings. For example, lost limbs or amputations due to blast injuries impact children’s skeletal growth and frequently require multiple surgeries as children grow. Recovery challenges are further exacerbated by the lack of child-specific prosthetics and other assistive devices, as well as the need for such devices to be regularly replaced as children outgrow them.
Indirect or Reverberating Impacts
The impact of explosive weapons on children is not limited to death or injury. Beyond these direct impacts, children also face a wide range of other harmful indirect or “reverberating” effects, particularly when explosive weapons are used in populated areas. Traditionally safe spaces for children such as homes, schools, playgrounds, nurseries, and health centres have come under attack when wars are fought in cities. The destruction of critical civilian infrastructure from explosive weapons often restricts children’s access to health care, education, nutrition, water and sanitation, and other essential services – all of which create challenges for children’s survival, recovery, growth, development, and long-term health and livelihood prospects.
While this impacts adults as well, children tend to suffer quickly and severely when such essential services break down. For example, children may face malnutrition, stunting, or lose access to immunisations. Cholera and diarrheal diseasesremain leading causes of mortality among children under five years old and are strongly linked to poor water, sanitation, and hygiene – so when these facilities are damaged or destroyed young children especially suffer consequences. Children also face heightened risks of exploitation and abuse when the use of explosive weapons leads to their displacement, particularly when they are unaccompanied or separated from parents and other caregivers. This includes risks of recruitment and use by armed groups or armed forces, as well as rape and other forms of sexual violence.
Exposure to explosive weapons often leads to long-term negative effects on children’s mental health and well-being, leading for example to trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and toxic stress. Blasts from explosive weapons can be particularly scary for children – they may witness the death or injury of friends and family members, see their homes destroyed, and lose families and caregivers. Studies from Gaza, Iraq, and Syria all point to detrimental impacts on children living through war, including prolonged exposure to bombardment. Yet, resources to adequately and sustainably address mental health and psychosocial needs of children living in war and its aftermath are severely under-resourced.
Tools Available to Prevent and Mitigate Harm to Children
While the scale and severity of harm to children in war is daunting, leveraging existing tools and frameworks can strengthen our collective response to child protection needs and help governments, humanitarian actors, first responders, and others ensure that efforts to mitigate civilian harm from explosive weapons do not overlook children. One recent example is the EWIPA Declaration (2022), endorsed by 87 countries at the time of writing. By endorsing the Declaration, states commit to avoid civilian harm by restricting or refraining from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. This includes commitments related to military policy and practice, victim assistance, humanitarian access, and data collection. Though not child focused, the Declaration highlights children’s particular vulnerabilities to reverberating impacts of EWIPA, calls for better disaggregation of data, including age-disaggregated data, and welcomes work to integrate the voices of all those impacted by EWIPA, including women and girls. In addition to the EWIPA Declaration, States can continue to endorse and implement commitments made through other non-binding instruments focused on child protection in war, namely, the Safe Schools Declaration, the Vancouver Principles, the Paris Principles and Commitments.
Furthermore, existing frameworks, such as the tools established under the UN’s CAAC agenda can be further supported and leveraged to address harm to children caused by explosive weapons. The UN continues to monitor and verify reports of grave violations against children, but resources need to be sustained and adequately expanded to meet the growing number of conflict situations, particularly when conflicts intensify and when UN missions draw down or exit. Action plans continue to be a crucial tool in the UN’s CAAC framework to spur concrete, time-bound actions to end and prevent grave violations against children in armed conflict. Such plans can include specific provisions for avoiding the use of explosive weapons, for improving military doctrine, policies, and planning to include child-specific impact assessments, banning the military use of schools and hospitals, and strengthening accountability for grave violations. Dedicated child protection capacity in UN missions and Country Teams regularly advocate for explosive ordnance mitigation, including mine clearance, and conduct explosive ordnance risk education and conflict preparedness and protection for affected communities, including children. Conclusions of the Security Council Working Group on CAAC can address specific recommendations related to the use of explosive weapons in situations on the agenda and can follow up on implementation during field visits. The Working Group can also call on donors to provide resources for explosive ordnance risk education, demining and explosive ordnance clearance, as well as long-term physical, psycho-social support for children impacted by explosive weapons.
Finally, States should redouble their efforts to uphold their obligations to ensure civilians and particularly children are protected in war – including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions on the protection of civilians and children and armed conflict.
All these available tools should be utilised to better ensure that children do not continue to pay the biggest price in armed conflict and to reduce and mitigate the effects of EWIPA on conflict-affected children worldwide.