A/HRC/43/CRP.6 SDF recruiting children for combat and support roles in military operations aiming to oust opposing groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra and, later on, against ISIL. Instances have been documented of boys aged 15 below and, albeit infrequently, girls as young as 16 recruited for participation in hostilities in Aleppo, Hassakah and Ayn al-Arab (Kobane) and Raqqah. Numerous accounts collected by the Commission describe how children were actively recruited, often under the guise of the providing access to education, and deployed to battlefields. One interviewee described witnessing a 10-year-old boy dragging an AK-47 because the weapon was too large. 41. The violations and abuses inflicted by ISIL on children have had a devastating impact on survivors. ISIL used and systematically recruited children for direct participation in hostilities and failed to protect them in the course of its military operations. ISIL established “cubs camps” across its territory where children of various backgrounds, including Yazidi boys as young as seven who were forcibly transferred from Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014 and brought into Syria, were trained for combat roles and suicide missions. C. Attacks on education “Interrupted education is a real issue. There are teenagers of the age 15 or 16 who are illiterate. Families keep fleeing and children keep attending whatever classes are available in their new areas.” Interviewee discussing education in Idlib in 2019 42. Children’s right to education has been denied by all parties to the conflict. Warring parties have looted and vandalized educational establishments and used schools for military purposes, including as depots, barracks, sniper posts, temporary bases or launching sites. Repeated attacks on educational facilities combined with the complete breakdown of the education system have minimized the opportunities for children to resume their studies and improve prospects for their future. Government forces 43. A large number of schools have been the site of protests and were subsequently targeted by Government forces. This resulted in schools gradually closing down across the country due to fears of military attack. One interviewee described how, in February 2012, in response to anti-Government protests, Government forces fired at Abdita School in Idlib governorate, broke into the classrooms, destroyed school materials and placed graffiti slogans on the walls. 44. In another example, on 24 November 2018, pro-Government forces launched an attack using mortar projectiles near al-Khansaa primary school in Jarjanaz.33 Some 250 children were playing in the schoolyard when a rocket-assisted mortar projectile exploded approximately 50 metres away, killing at least four boys aged between 8 and 10 years, and two girls aged 10 and 11 years. Numerous other children were injured. As in other cases, the school was closed for a certain time, in anticipation of additional attacks, further reducing access to education countrywide. Most recently, the Commission received credible information that some 70 schools in the demilitarized zone of Idlib have been destroyed or damaged by hostilities, depriving over 200,000 pupils of formal education. 34 45. Countless teachers, without whom the education system cannot operate meaningfully, have been killed and injured. Over the years, teachers have been also abducted, detained and dismissed from their positions in Dar’a and Suwaydah governorates for perceived affiliation with armed groups. As Government forces re-took areas previously under the control of armed groups in 2018, numerous teachers fled fearing reprisals. This left unqualified individuals to teach pupils who had already missed years of education. Moreover, in Dar’a, interviewees consistently reported overcrowded classrooms with children of various ages and levels studying together in those buildings that could still hold classes. 33 34 12 See A/HRC/40/70, para. 29 See A/HRC/42/51, para. 48.