A/HRC/21/50 his or her family to pressure them to turn themselves in. Worse than that is the dual beating and imprisonment of a father and his son in order to break the adult. It is very carefully thought out.‖ 7. There are multiple reports of children killed during military ground operations and house searches. As described more fully in annex V, Government forces and Shabbiha conducted a military operation in the village of Ain Larouz to look for defectors. On 4 March, Government forces detained 35 people, including two boys of 14 and 16 years and a 10 year old girl. On 12 March, all but four were released. Bodies of the two boys along with two adults were discovered lying just outside the village. 8. Interviewees recounted the killing of children in Atarib in February; Bab Amr in March; Karm-el-Zeytoun in March; Tal Rifat (Aleppo) in early April; Taftanaz in early May and in Al Qubeir (Hama) in June. These children were killed with members of their families during military ground operations in the named towns and villages. 9. Children were also amongst the victims killed in Al-Houla on 25 May. UN observers found at least 108 bodies, 41 of them children. Some had been killed by shrapnel during shelling, but most appeared to have been shot at close range. B. Children in detention 10. Multiple reports of arrests and detentions of children were received. Children were detained during or immediately following protests or during ground operations and house searches. In two cases, children appear to have been arrested, along with older family members, because of familial links to fighters in anti-government armed groups. 11. Children interviewed by the commission described being beaten, blindfolded, subjected to prolonged stress positions, whipped with electrical cables, scarred by cigarette burns and, in two recorded cases, subjected to electrical shocks to the genitals. 12. One 15 year old boy said he was arrested in March by security and plain clothes officers after protesting, and taken to a Political Security office in Dara‘a in March. He stated, ―There were lots of young men, children and adolescents and also older people. I was standing and the officer stood in front of me and hit me across the face. They put electricity on my temples and my stomach … They asked us, „Where are the weapons!‟ … They used lots of electricity. It felt like five hours and went on until morning, I think. There were kids as young as 10 with me in the cell ...‖ He was released five days later only after signing a confession ―… stating that we were terrible boys and had done many things wrong…I also had to sign a blank paper.‖ 13. A 14-year-old boy stated that he was arrested during a demonstration in Idlib in March. He had been taken with 12 others to the Military Intelligence branch in Idlib where he was beaten with a pipe and given electric shocks. Another interviewee stated that her 17 year old son had been arrested by Shabbiha in Blin (Idlib) after participating in protests in late February. She stated that he had been taken to detention where he was beaten, subjected to electric shocks and made to ―kneel and pray for Bashar al-Assad‖. 14. Eight detainees, including two minors, stated that minors and adults were held in the same cells. This was said to have occurred in the cells of Aleppo central prison; the Political Security office in Dara‘a; the Military Intelligence office in Idlib and Adra central prison which was under the control of Air Force Intelligence. One adult detainee, held in an unknown location in Damascus, stated he was held in a small overcrowded room with adult and child detainees, the youngest of who appeared to be 13 years old. Child detainees reported enduring the same conditions of detention as described in annex VIII. 96