A/HRC/38/29 International Law Committed in the Syria Arab Republic since March 2011. She also called for the referral of the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic to the International Criminal Court. 9. The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syrian crisis stressed that 40 per cent of the 13.1 million people in the Syrian Arab Republic requiring protection and assistance were children. Of the 5.6 million people in acute need, 663,000 were under 5 years old. The protection of civilians in the conduct of hostilities remained a critical concern. In that regard, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator noted that Eastern Ghouta had been besieged for five years and that families had been sheltering in overcrowded basements, not knowing if they would survive another day. Children had been subjected to an unprecedented level of indiscriminate violence, causing long-lasting psychological trauma. 10. The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator stated he had been appalled by the reports of ongoing major violations of children’s rights issued by the monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict established by the Security Council, the Commission of Inquiry, OHCHR and others. In 2017, the number of reports of violations of children’s rights in the context of the conflict, perpetrated by all sides, was the highest since the beginning of the conflict, and 2017 had been the deadliest year of the war for children. The monitoring and reporting mechanism had verified that at least 910 children had been killed and 361 injured, with a large majority of child casualties occurring in Idlib, Aleppo, Dayr al-Zawr and other locations. 11. The monitoring and reporting mechanism had verified 108 attacks on hospitals and medical personnel in 2017. Those attacks, which severely undermined the delivery of health services, had a disproportionate impact on the lives of children. In any other country, an attack on a hospital would cause outrage and spark calls for action and accountability, while in the Syrian Arab Republic more than 100 such attacks had taken place in one year alone, with no end in sight. 12. The recruitment of children and their use in armed conflict by all parties continued to increase. In 2017, the recruitment of children as combatants under the age of 15 — prohibited under international humanitarian law and constituting a war crime — represented 25 per cent of recruitment cases involving boys and girls. Out of every 10 recruited children, 9 served in a combat role in uniform, armed and with military training. 13. The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator underlined the importance of unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access, stressing that the challenge was more significant than ever. The United Nations and its partners in the Syrian Arab Republic focused on reaching those most in need across the country, namely the 2.9 million men, women and children living in hard-to-reach areas, including over 400,000 people — half of whom were children — in besieged locations. Cross-line assistance into hard-to-reach and besieged areas had almost totally collapsed due to the refusal of the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic to grant the necessary approval to access those areas. Consequently, Syrian people would soon die more from starvation and disease than from bombing and shelling. 14. The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator emphasized that protection of civilians was central to the humanitarian response in the Syrian Arab Republic, and remained the most challenging aspect of the humanitarian agenda. He called on all Member States to leverage any influence they had to stop violations against children, noting that even in the midst of a high-intensity armed conflict, there were solutions to ensure all parties would comply with their international obligations and protect children. He concluded by calling on belligerents and their influencers to put the protection of children first. III. Contribution of the panellists 15. In her introductory remarks as moderator of the panel, Ms. von Hall shared stories from her travels to the Syrian Arab Republic as a journalist. She spoke about two children she had met: Hala, an 8-year-old girl, had sustained burns on 70 per cent of her body and had been completely disfigured when a bomb fell on her home in Aleppo; Hozaifa, a 17- 3