THE United Nations envoy charged with reporting on violations against children in conflict zones warned on Thursday she is worried about what’s happening to young people in war-torn Sudan.

Launching the UN secretary-general’s annual report and blacklist of violators, Virginia Gamba also voiced fears about children in Congo and Haiti, as well as those caught in Myanmar’s civil war and the spillover into neighbouring Bangladesh.

“For the future, on the horizon,” she said, “I’m worried about Somalia and Afghanistan.”

The report put both Israeli forces and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants on the blacklist for the first time, reportedly for violating children’s rights in 2023 during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel and the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza.

Ms Gamba said first and foremost she was worried about children in Sudan, “particularly Darfur and Chad because it is expanding.” 

Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions including Darfur, which became synonymous with genocide and war crimes two decades ago. 

The UN says more than 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured.

Ms Gamba said a “ferocious armed struggle” led to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces being put on the blacklist for killing, maiming, raping and committing other acts of sexual violence, as well as attacking schools and hospitals. 

The Sudanese Armed Forces were listed for killing and injuring children, as well as attacking schools and hospitals.

In Congo, a 13,500-strong UN peacekeeping force is in the process of withdrawing by the end of December.

Ms Gamba said “massive sexual violence” against children is taking place.

The new report blacklists Congo’s armed forces and 16 other armed groups fighting in the country for violating children’s rights.

Ms Gamba said that once the UN withdrawal is complete “I will lose my eyes.”

Though monitoring of abuses will continue, it won’t be the same level of engagement, she said.

The report also expresses deep concern at “indiscriminate armed gang violence and grave violations against children” in Haiti.

It says the UN verified 383 grave violations against 307 children in the last six months of 2023 and lists about a dozen gangs that were responsible for the violations.

The report describes the violation of children’s rights as “endemic, and particularly systemic (is) the rape of girls.”