UN Security Council reaffirms commitment to protect civilians in conflict

The UN Security Council on Wednesday reaffirmed its commitment regarding the protection of civilians in armed conflict, urging parties involved to meet the basic needs of the affected people. Following a meeting on protection of civilians in armed conflict, the council approved a presidential statement reaffirming that "states bear the primary responsibility to respect and ensure the human rights of their citizens, as well as all individuals within their territory as provided for by relevant international law and reaffirms the responsibility of each individual state to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity." The council members urged the parties to armed conflict to meet the basic needs of the affected civilians, and give attention to the specific needs of women and children, refugees, internally displaced persons, as well as other civilians who may have specific vulnerabilities including persons with disabilities and older persons. "The Security Council reiterates its strong condemnation of all violations of applicable international law and demands that parties to armed conflict comply strictly with the obligations applicable to them under international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law, as well as to implement all relevant decisions of the Security Council," the statement said. Reaffirming the need for peacekeeping missions with protection of civilian mandates to ensure their implementation, the 15-nation body stressed the importance of continued and further engagement by senior mission leadership, "with a view to ensuring that all mission components and all levels of the chain of command are properly informed of and are involved in the mission's protection mandate and their relevant responsibilities." In addition, the most powerful body of the UN encouraged further coordination between the world organization and regional and subregional institutions on issues relating to the protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations.