Activist groups said Monday at least 129 children were killed in the Philippines’ four-year war on drugs, but the figures could only be a fraction of the actual numbers.
Police or allied assailants killed most of the kids, World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center said.
The report entitled “How could they do this to my child?” said most of the victims were minors and were tagged as “collateral damage.”
The group called on Human Rights Council to launch an independent commission of inquiry into extrajudicial killings and other crimes at its three-week session opening on today, June 30.
The figures are just “The tip of the iceberg because it is only those cases that we were able to document and verify, there may be many more in the country,” said Gerald Staberock, OMCT secretary-general.
“We are calling on the Human Rights Council to give a clear investigative mandate on the ground to collect the evidence and to ensure accountability,” he told a news conference.
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129 children killed in Philippines’ four-year war on drugs- report
Palace has yet to respond to the group’s report. However, Spokesman Harry Roque earlier rejected a separate UN report this month, which claims tens of thousands of people may have been killed under President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
But the activists’ report said: “Far from being only ‘collateral damage,’ as callously stated by President Rodrigo Duterte, these have often been deliberate killings.”
Their investigations revealed that policemen killed 38.5 % of the children while 61.5% were by unknown assailants, “some of them with direct links to the police.” The youngest victim was a 20-month-old baby girl.
The report said only one case of document child-killing led to a conviction which was the killing of 17-year-old Manila student Kian Delos Santos, recorded on video in 2017.
Rose Trajano of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates said there were also children violating quarantine restrictions that were killed.
“We have documented at least 15 extrajudicial killings during the time of COVID, and we know that is not all,” she said.