India tells UN Security Council that those targeting schools, children must be held accountable

India has called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to hold accountable those responsible for attacks on schools and children, stressing that efforts to protect children remain incomplete without justice and accountability.

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, made the remarks while addressing the UNSCon on Wednesday, news agency PTI reported.

Parvathaneni said, “Education is a right that should endure in times of conflict. It is a right whose fulfillment is among the most powerful contributions to lasting peace. India remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting children in armed conflict and promoting their right to learn, grow and realize their full potential.”

He emphasized that “protection without accountability is incomplete” and called for accountability of those who target schools and children.

PTI reported that India’s remarks came after the UN Secretary-General released his report on children and armed conflict, which said that by 2025, child rights violations in armed conflict had reached “shocking levels” with a record number of children affected.

Violation of children’s rights in armed conflicts

According to PTI, the 2025 report said the UN verified 38,558 serious violations affecting 24,174 children, including 15,493 boys, 7,990 girls and 691 of unknown gender, the highest number of children affected by serious violations since the agency began documenting such cases.

The news agency said the report also revealed that the number of children exposed to multiple serious violations continued to rise from 3,137 in 2024 to 3,176 in 2025.

The report states: “Parties to the conflict have failed or proactively undermined their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law and continued with near-total impunity for serious violations, resulting in excessive humanitarian consequences for civilians and civilian objects, disproportionately affecting children and the facilities and services on which they rely.”

Read also | How can children be made equal participants in their education?

According to PTI, it also said that government forces were responsible for most of the serious violations and were primarily responsible for killing and maiming children, attacking schools and hospitals, and restricting the access of aid workers.

UN report presents ‘alarming statistics’: India to UN Security Council

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN said the 2025 report presented “alarming statistics” and the number of attacks on schools increased by a whopping 44% in one year, according to PTI.

Parvathaneni said that roughly 473 million children, or more than one in six worldwide, are either living in or fleeing conflict zones, with roughly 85 million of them lacking access to education.

Trump says culprit behind Iran school strike may never be known

US President Donald Trump said in a separate message on Wednesday that it may never be known who was responsible for a deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran on the first day of the US-Israeli war in Tehran that killed dozens of children, Reuters reported.

Trump said, “I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem based on whose fault it was, because missiles were flying everywhere and it’s terrible what happened, but missiles were flying everywhere.”

He added: “Someone said it was our shot, maybe it wasn’t our shot, but I didn’t see anything that would lead me to believe it was.” He repeated, “I don’t think it was us.”

Read also | US responsible for strike on Iranian school that killed 160, mostly girls: NYT

In early March, Reuters reported that an initial internal US military investigation indicated that Washington forces were likely responsible for the deadly attack in Iran’s Minab.