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HAMILTON, Canada

The UN relief chief raised alarm Thursday over soaring civilian casualties in global conflicts, and revealed that more than 36,000 civilians were killed in 14 war zones in 2024.

"The real number is likely far higher," Tom Fletcher told a Security Council meeting on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.

He warned of a dangerous global trend. "We are witnessing an unraveling of the protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law," he said.

Fletcher said that the number of forcibly displaced people reached a new high of over 122 million, with most displaced within their own countries.

"Reports of enforced disappearance, torture, inhumane treatment, and other trauma were widespread," he noted.

"Sexual violence was rampant," Fletcher said. "The UN verified some 4,500 cases last year, 93% of victims were women and girls."

He added that conflict-driven hunger had reached "alarming levels," and "2024 was also the deadliest year on record for humanitarians," with more than 360 aid workers killed, including at least 200 in Gaza and 54 in Sudan.

Urging the Council to uphold legal protections and accountability, he said: "Some States tend to consider the law selectively, depending on the parties concerned or the interests at stake. All this undermines the very purpose of the rules of war: to limit human suffering in armed conflict."

"Last week in the Security Council, I asked what action we will tell future generations we each took to stop 21st century atrocities. But the question does not apply to Gaza alone. It applies to so many conflicts where civilians are trapped and terrorized," he said.

- 'One woman and one girl killed every hour' in Gaza

Calling on Council members as well as UN member states to "summon greater political will and courage to turn this tide," Fletcher said: "Let us be remembered not by the warnings we gave but by the action we took."

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous warned that "over 612 million women and girls are living in conflict zones," calling it a "call to action for all of us."

"In Gaza, over 28,000 women and girls have been killed since October 2023, an average of one woman and one girl killed every hour," she said. "These are not natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”

She emphasized the urgent need for justice. "With few welcome exceptions, perpetrators face no consequences. Sanctions regimes remain underutilized,” said Bahous.

She warned that funding cuts threaten the very women leading recovery in fragile contexts.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric called for the defense of international humanitarian law, and said: "Your state may not be at war today. Your family may be far from frontlines, but tides turn, new conflicts erupt, and if you do not defend the rules of war today, you are accepting a world where wars are fought with increasing barbarity and disregard for our shared humanity."

Spoljaric reminded the Council that forced displacement from occupied territories remains illegal, even when conditions are made unbearable.

"We face not only a crisis of compliance with the rules of war, but one of our collective conscience. The precedent being set on battlefields today will haunt us for a long time," she warned.

Janti Soeripto, head of Save the Children US, noted the unique vulnerability of children in war and said: "Children are not small adults."

"There can be no peace without justice and no protection without accountability," she said, and urged the Council to demand credible investigations and to support child survivors through independent accountability mechanisms.