Explosive weapons – such as missiles, grenades and mortars are designed to destroy military targets and to further military objectives. However, with the urbanisation of warfare, explosive weapons are being increasingly used in towns and cities where they have wide area direct and indirect effects on children. Children disproportionately being the victims of wars they never started.
Impacts of explosives are visceral in Gaza right now, where 75,000 people have been injured and nearly 35,000 people killed in 6 months. But in Ukraine, Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan and countless other countries, communities are also living with the immediate and long-term impacts of explosive weapons .
Imagine what a weapon designed to pierce thick armour does to the body of a small child. Children are 7 times more likely to die compared to adults. Shrapnel and rubble penetrate more deeply through their, as yet, not fully formed tissue. Burns are more fatal on their thinner skin. The force of a blast can hurl children into the air, and their shorter statue means they’re more likely to experience lethal head injuries. Save the Children programme staff see countless examples of the long-term mental harm caused by these weapons - anxiety, fear, self-blame, shame, pain and even suicide.
And even though this is well documented, civilian harm caused by explosive weapons was recorded in 75 countries around the world last year.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
International law makes it clear that parties to any conflict need to limit the use of these kinds of weapons, through key principles – namely distinction and proportionality. This means that states are obliged to distinguish between civilians and obliged to refrain from attacks which are expected to cause disproportionate and excessive civilian harm. These are enshrined in various Treaties and Conventions – like the Geneva Convention. And in 2022, a new Political Declaration on this came into being to reinforce this legal framework: namely, the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (The EWIPA Declaration).
EWIPA Conference
I attended the second annual conference on the EWIPA Declaration in Oslo this week, hosted by the Norwegian Government. The 87 states who have endorsed (including the UK) were in attendance. Members of military, foreign affairs, civil society and survivors of blast injuries were all in the room, discussing its implementation - both in military policy and practice - but also by encouraging other states to adopt and implement.
Save the Children was there to testify to the impact of explosive weapons that we see in so many of our programmes in conflict. We talked about our paediatric manual to help responders better deal with child blast injuries and a partnership with Imperial College, London to better understand the impacts on children. We also underlined our advocacy on the Safe Schools Declaration, as a result of which endorsing states have seen a 50% reduction in military use of schools, whereas non-endorsing states have seen a 100% increase – proving the power that political declarations can have when they’re properly implemented.
Impunity breeds impunity
Of course, actions speak louder than words and it is strong political commitment that will make the EWIPA Declaration successful. That means states must call out violations of IHL and they must work together to hold perpetrators to account. Impunity breeds impunity and what we’re seeing in Gaza is a test case for that. As obscene violations continue, the international community cannot afford another piece of paper playing lip service to the protection of civilians – states can’t bring back or heal the children who have suffered, but they can uphold what they’ve committed to.
I spoke to the incredible Dr Hamza Alkateab, a doctor from Aleppo whose hospital was repeatedly bombed by Russian and Syrian forces and whose wife created the powerful film For Sama. He told me ‘There is no light at the end of the tunnel…all we can do is keep walking down it together’. Despite that sense of hopelessness, it’s clear that that is what the international community must do – stand firm on the application of IHL, for generations of children rely on them to do so.
