While civilians continue to suffer because parties to conflict choose to ignore their legal obligation to protect them, the Security Council heard today that adhering to the rules of war - and enforcing accountability when they are broken - can produce a different result.
The Council is holding its annual day-long open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict as the United Nations observes the ninth iteration of its " Protection of Civilians Week ". Just yesterday, 19 May, the organ met following attacks on civilian populations in Ukraine and infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates .
"One civilian was killed approximately every 14 minutes in 2025," said Edem Wosornu, Director of the Crisis Response Division in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
All too often, civilians are not collateral damage - "they are the target", she stressed. Explosive weapons tear through towns and cities, destroying lives and the infrastructure that sustains them. And healthcare is also under attack, as she observed that - 10 years after the adoption of resolution 2286 (2016) on protecting medical care in conflict - "the situation has only gotten worse".
Decade after Resolution 2286 (2016), Medical, Humanitarian Workers under Increasing Attack
In 2025 alone, she noted, the UN recorded more than 1,350 attacks on medical care across 18 conflicts. Conflict-driven hunger has also increased, and 147 million people faced acute food insecurity, driven largely by armed conflict. Further, sexual violence remains widespread - with over 9,300 reported cases - and journalists targeted, with the 186 killed between 2022 and 2025 representing a 67 per cent increase compared to the period between 2018 and 2021. And already in 2026, 144 humanitarian workers have been reported killed, injured, abducted or detained.
"None of this is inevitable," she underscored. Rather, it results from the choice made by conflicting parties to ignore their obligations to protect civilians, to adopt increasingly permissive interpretations of international law, to subordinate the protection of civilians to claims of military necessity or to allow impunity prevail. Other choices, however, are possible - "and they must be made". Protecting civilians, she urged, "requires more than expressions of concern".
It requires "genuine commitment that translates into concrete action", she said. This includes ensuring respect for international law "without exception", calling out "those who raze entire cities to the ground" and stopping the transfer of weapons when there is a clear risk they will be used against civilians. "Protecting civilians in armed conflict is not charity," she stressed. "It is the minimum that humanity and civilization require."
Dehumanization Fuels Atrocity
Building on that, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), observed that "wars fought without rules turn wars against combatants into wars against civilians". Brutal methods of fighting are becoming worryingly common. "We can no longer pretend that what we are seeing across warzones is in accordance with the law," she stressed, warning that leaders who label their enemies as "sub-human" or threaten entire populations are, in effect, threatening to "destroy the moral foundations of what it means to be human".
Across history, she pointed out, these tactics of dehumanization have consistently preceded atrocity crimes. "Indiscriminate killing, torture and abuse become far easier to justify when we stop seeing others as equal human beings," she said, and re-casting people as less than human can see moral boundaries collapse all too easily. "Armed conflict does not happen in a vacuum," but rather, often results where politics fail.
She expressed support for the Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law , already endorsed by some 111 nations. Protecting civilians and treating adversaries within the bounds of the law "does not make you weaker", she stressed, but instead "strengthens your moral hand at home and abroad".
That law, said Liberia's representative, "was established to restrain the worst excesses of conflict and to preserve a measure of humanity amidst violence". However, he pointed to patterns of conduct that inflict long-term suffering on civilians and undermine prospects for sustainable peace and recovery. Stressing that the collapse of civilian infrastructure leaves "consequences that persist long after the guns fall silent", he said: "Liberia understands these realities. We've lived them."
'Trend of Disregard' for International Law
Other speakers - including the representatives of Greece and Panama - also spotlighted the gulf between law and fact. Denmark's representative, noting a "trend of disregard" for international law by State actors and armed groups, emphasized: "The scale of civilian suffering we see today is inseparable from the crisis of impunity." The international community, said the representative of Pakistan, faces a "crisis of compliance, accountability and political will". He underscored: "Impunity is an invitation to repetition."
Some pointed to specific situations, with the representative of the Russian Federation stating that thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks carried out "on the instructions of the criminal regime in Kyiv". Meanwhile, his counterparts from Latvia and the United States noted the Ukrainian children forcibly displaced by Moscow's war. The latter also highlighted Iran's targeting of civilians, on which she was joined by Bahrain's representative.
Underlining the 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza in 2025 alone, the representative of Somalia urged: "We must place accountability and international law at the absolute centre of our efforts." France's representative agreed, adding that the Council has repeatedly stepped forward as a guarantor for civilian protection and international law - and must continue to do so. "Without political and legal consequences for violations," said the representative of Colombia, "the collective commitment to the protection of civilians runs the risk of losing both effectiveness and legitimacy."
Human Oversight Essential for Use of Drones, AI, Digital Surveillance
"As conflicts become increasingly complex, we need to hone our tools and evolve our approaches to best protect civilians," urged the representative of the United Kingdom. He joined other speakers in spotlighting the rapidly changing landscape of global warfare, now characterized by the use of armed drones, artificial intelligence (AI), digital surveillance and other emerging technology. "We should advocate technology for good," urged the representative of China, Council President for May, who spoke in his national capacity to stress that weapons systems must always remain under human control.
Drawing on his country's decades of conflict, the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo said the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) demonstrates both the importance and limits of international efforts to resolve armed conflict. While the primary responsibility to protect civilians rests with States, he emphasized the importance of monitoring mechanisms. As others, he warned that impunity remains a key driver of human rights violations.
"When we speak of what has happened in Gaza, we cannot forget it," stressed the observer for the State of Palestine. In four months of war, "more children were killed than in the previous four years across the world". "Either we proclaim that Palestinian civilians are lesser civilians, lesser human beings - not entitled to the same protection - or we proclaim that the rules do not apply to Israel."
Finger Pointing over 'Manufactured' Crises, Atrocities in Middle East, Ukraine
"Our nation is in a state of shock and disbelief at the scale of human suffering we witness every day in Palestine," said Edil Baisalov, Special Envoy of the President of Kyrgyzstan, joining many others on this point. "The intensity and scale of the Israeli aggression has been marked by patterns of destruction and attacks that know no moral, human or legal boundary," stressed Lebanon's representative.
Israel's representative, meanwhile, recalled that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out "mass atrocities of unimaginable cruelty" against Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023. Hizbullah escalated the conflict from Lebanon, while Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. "Openly calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel is neither distant nor hypothetical."
However, the representative of Iran - pointing to recent aggression against his country by the United States and Israel - recalled that more than 168 students were murdered in one "particularly horrific attack" that destroyed a girls' school in Minab. He urged the Council not to remain silent or indifferent to repeated statements by the United States President, including to "bomb Iran back to the Stone Age". Cuba's representative, for his part, rejected efforts by the United States to manufacture a humanitarian crisis in his country to justify military action.
Council Paralysis Costs Civilian Lives
Referencing the actions of another permanent Council member, the representative of Ukraine pointed to Moscow's attempts to "freeze civilians into submission" through attacks on energy facilities and use of "double-tap strikes" designed to kill first responders. He urged Member States - and the Council - to confront this "grotesque reality". And while the representative of the European Union, in its capacity as observer, underlined the imperative to uphold international law, many others - such as those from Armenia and Azerbaijan - pointed to persistent non-compliance.
In light of all of this, Brazil's representative urged the Council to reassure the global community of its capability, stressing: "Paralysis ultimately kills civilians worldwide, with lasting consequences for generations to come."
