A/HRC/40/CRP.1 2. Violations of the Rights to Life and Protection from Violence, Injury or Abuse, including Rape and Sexual Violence a) Killings and Injuries Children continue to be killed and injured in South Sudan as a result of being directly targeted and caught in the crossfire of ongoing military operations. It is estimated that more than 2,300 South Sudanese children have been killed or injured since the conflict first erupted in 2013.724 The United Nations verified 46 incidents of killings and maiming of children in the first half of 2018.725 A report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, based on 21 surveys, found that approximately 10 percent of those killed in violent deaths in South Sudan were children under 18 years old. Given that such children make up just over half the population of South Sudan, as would be hoped, they suffer a lower per capita proportion of deaths than the adult population.726 Despite these statistics, in all situations the Commission has investigated, both in previous mandates as well as this one, children continue to suffer not only as collateral victims but also targets of violence. In all three regions that the Commission focused on in this mandate, it found evidence of violence against children, including deliberate attacks on children occurring in 2018. In Central Equatoria, the Commission documented the 14 May 2018 attack on Emmanuel Christian College (ECC) in Goli, Central Equatoria, in the course of which five students (boys) were shot and killed by SPLA soldiers from the Tiger Division. 727 One of these boys who, was only 12 years old, had been shot in his dormitory and sexually assaulted.728 In the course of the southern Unity State offensive between April and June 2018, the Commission received evidence of SPLA, SPLA-IO (TD) and affiliated militias directly targeting children. Witnesses told the Commission of children being shot as they fled, tanks running down children, as well hitting babies against trees until they died. 729 One witness told of a seven day old baby being shot with its mother.730 Further, other children died of starvation and drowning as they tried hide in the swamps to avoid the attacks. 731 The UNMISS Human Rights Division also documented the killings of 35 children in the course of the southern Unity offensive.732 Similarly, in the course of the fighting in the Wau triangle in Western Bahr el Ghazal starting in mid-June 2018, witnesses told the Commission of children as young as five being shot by SPLA soldiers.733 Others, as young as seven, were injured including by getting hit by shards of mortar.734 b) Rape and Sexual Violence UNICEF estimates that nearly 25 percent of conflict-related sexual violence committed in South Sudan involves children, with girls particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, abuse and exploitation.735 By December 2017, UNICEF estimated that more than 1,200 children had been affected by sexual violence, 93 percent of whom were girls.736 The United Nations had verified 19 cases of rape and sexual violence affecting children in the UNICEF, Briefing Note: Childhood under Attack, the Staggering Impact of South Sudan’s Crisis on Children, 15 December 2017. UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in South Sudan, 25 September 2018, S/2018/865. 726 Francesco Checchi, et al., “Estimates of crisis-attributable mortality in South Sudan, December 2013-April 2018: A statistical analysis”, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease, September 2018. 727 Witness 741, ERN 101417-101457, para. 6; Witness 703, ERN 101470-101475, paras. 8-11; Witness 764, ERN 101946-101954, para. 6; Witness 699, ERN 101521-101529, paras. 7, 9; Witness 717, ERN 101388-101399, para. 15; Witness 723, ERN 101454101461, para. 18; Confidential Source ERN D113590-D113600; Confidential Source, ERN D115036-D115084. 728 Witness 700, ERN 101462-101469, para. 9. 729 Witness 793, ERN 101499-101502, para. 5; Witness 828, ERN 101804-101810, para. 11; Witness 839, ERN 101626-101631, para. 9. 730 Witness 826, ERN 101856-101863, para. 19. 731 Witness 793, ERN 101499-101502, para. 5; Witness 826, ERN 101856-101863, para. 25. 732 UNMISS/OHCHR, Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Southern Unity April – May 2018. 733 Witness 883, ERN 101557-101561, para. 7; Witness 914, ERN 101788-101793, para. 11; 734 Witness 883, ERN 101557-101561, para. 10. 735 UNICEF, Briefing Note: Childhood under Attack, the Staggering Impact of South Sudan’s Crisis on Children, 15 December 2017. 736 UNICEF, Briefing Note: Childhood under Attack, the Staggering Impact of South Sudan’s Crisis on Children, 15 December 2017. 724 725 102