A/HRC/4/45 page 9 5. Attacks on schools and hospitals 11. Places that should be safe havens for children such as schools and hospitals have been deliberately attacked in many situations of conflict such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Nepal, Somalia and Sri Lanka. The Office of the Special Representative has received reports that schools and hospitals have been destroyed or damaged by military operations, or these premises occupied by armed groups, in addition to disconcerting cases of principals, teachers and students being killed by parties to conflict. The Office of the Special Representative urges these parties to respect civilians and civilian objects and ensure that schools and hospitals are accorded special protection in times of conflict. 6. Denial of humanitarian assistance to children 12. The denial of humanitarian access in conflict situations has a particularly devastating effect on children. Parties in some situations of conflict have failed to respect humanitarian or security zones, or to open safe corridors to permit humanitarian workers to reach children in war zones in order to provide essential aid and protection. During the past year, there have also been a significant number of reports of assaults and killing of humanitarian workers. The Office of the Special Representative is concerned that children were denied access to humanitarian aid in Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Somalia and the Sudan. B. Security Council Working Group 13. The adoption of Security Council resolution 1612 (2005) also led to other significant advances, such as the establishment of the Security Council Working Group on children and armed conflict (the Working Group), which underlie the progress made to engender accountability and compliance by parties who commit grave violations against children. In the period since the adoption of this resolution, steady progress has been made in establishing the monitoring and reporting mechanism in the seven situations that were designated as priorities for the first phase of implementation, namely, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia, the Sudan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Information from the monitoring and reporting mechanism has been sent through reports to the Security Council and through reports of the United Nations Secretariat on situations of concern to the Working Group. It is intended that reports to the Working Group should serve as “triggers for action” by the Council and other relevant policy-level actors, resulting in pressure upon parties to conflict to halt violations against children. 14. To date, the Working Group has considered reports on situations of concern in relation to children and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire and Burundi, and has issued recommendations with respect to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sudan to the Security Council and other bodies within the United Nations system. The Working Group made recommendations to the Council to consider targeted sanctions against the leaders of the Mouvement révolutionaire du Congo (MRC) for repeated violations of Security Council resolutions on children and armed conflict, and has referred rebel leader Laurent Nkunda to the Security Council committee established pursuant to