A/HRC/38/29 year-old boy, was paralysed from the waist down, having been hit by a bomb on his way home from school, in Idlib. While those children had a long road to recovery, they were lucky because they had survived, which was not the case for many children in the Syrian Arab Republic. Ms. Von Hall had recently spoken to a man in Eastern Ghouta who was hiding in a basement with his six children. He had told her he had only one message to the world: “We do not primarily want food and medicine. We just want you to stop this war machine. Stop it now.” 16. In his intervention, Mr. Zaza highlighted the gravity of the escalating situation in Eastern Ghouta, which had been besieged for several years by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic and its allies. The population had been starved and deprived of basic goods due to the denial of humanitarian access, despite resolutions issued by the Security Council. Civilians, including 115,000 children, had been systematically and indiscriminately targeted in that area. Heavy and long-lasting bombing of civilians had previously been carried out in other locations in the Syrian Arab Republic, notably in order to force the population to negotiate a forced displacement deal, which had led to the displacement of 3 million children. Mr. Zaza deplored the fact that the recent brutal attacks in Eastern Ghouta had halted efforts at maintaining education for children living there: five schools had been attacked in the first week of February 2018 alone. 17. Mr. Zaza also deplored the failure of the institutions responsible for protecting civilians and children, noting that the larger the crisis, the more paralysed the institutions. The gravest humanitarian crisis since the beginning of the century could not be tackled without challenging the entire humanitarian system. In that respect, he called for real action, “revolutionary” approaches and a new humanitarian system. He also called for a new justice system through which perpetrators would be held accountable. He conveyed the words of a colleague of his trapped in besieged Eastern Ghouta, who considered the veto at the Security Council as a tool allowing the perpetration of war crimes of the modern age. Mr. Zaza added that not only fear and hatred were growing in the Syrian Arab Republic; the Syrian people were rejecting war and calling for justice and peace. 18. In conclusion, Mr. Zaza posed several questions to the international community, appealing for real answers about the collective action that would be taken to address another chemical attack, the persistence of besiegement and further school attacks, and to bring perpetrators to international justice. 19. Mr. Osman stressed that the gross violations of child rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, committed by all parties to the conflict, had resulted in countless deaths and injuries. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, some 27,000 children had been killed since the beginning of the conflict. His organization had documented human rights violations against children and conducted capacity-building activities on children’s rights for civil society. 20. Weapons prohibited under international law had been used against civilians. With regard to the use of chemical weapons, he cited the report of the Commission of Inquiry (A/HRC/36/55), in which the Commission had indicated that 54 per cent of the 179 individuals killed by chemical weapons in April 2017 were children. The recruitment and use of children by armed groups was another serious type of violation against children. The military intervention of international forces in the conflict, and the weapons they used, was further exacerbating the risks faced by recruited children. 21. Referring to a report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict (A/72/361–S/2017/821), Mr. Osman noted that grave violations against children had been committed by the Government, even though the Syrian Arab Republic was a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol thereto on the involvement of children in armed conflict. He also noted that, in the same report, the Secretary-General had described grave violations perpetrated by armed groups against children, including abductions. 22. Mr. Osman reported that 1.5 million school-aged children in the country were deprived of education, explaining that attacks on schools and education infrastructure were one of the main reasons why children were dropping out of school, in addition to the lack of education material and the absence of teachers. 4