Submission to the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons Older Persons in Armed Conflict and Peacebuilding

Introduction

Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input to inform the report on older persons in armed conflict and peacebuilding by the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons.

This submission responds to questions 1, 4, 13, and 22 of the Independent Expert’s questionnaire, and draws from research conducted by Human Rights Watch in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gaza, Israel, Mali, Myanmar, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.

Question 1. What are the key challenges older persons face in armed conflict, including protection, displacement and access to services?

Older persons can face a heightened risk of injury and abuses when they do not or are unable to flee hostilities and violence.

Choosing Not to Flee

Human Rights Watch has documented older persons who chose not to leave their homes and property when it was possible to do so and were killed or otherwise harmed by government forces or non-state armed groups when their communities came under attack. Some chose not to flee their homes despite approaching fighting because they wanted to protect their property, thought they would not be attacked, or had become ill when fleeing earlier fighting. [1]

In Nagorno-Karabakh, during the six-week conflict in 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Arega Shahkeldyan and her husband, Eduard, both in their 70s, remained at home in their village. Arega said that Eduard had refused to leave because he did not want to abandon their home and possessions and did not expect Azerbaijani forces to enter the village. In late October 2020, Azerbaijani soldiers found the Shahkeldyans at home and detained them, together with two other older villagers.[2]  

Obstacles to Flight

Family members may be unable to support older persons, including older persons with disabilities, to flee with them from villages, communities, or displacement camps during hostilities. Human Rights Watch documented cases in which older persons who were unable to flee experienced abuses, including being fired upon, deliberately burned alive, raped or tortured, or killed or injured by crossfire.[3]

In Myanmar in May 2024, the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group, burned Rohingya neighborhoods in Buthidaung town and nearby villages in Rakhine State, causing thousands of Rohingya to flee. Fatema, 22, lived in Ward 4 with 10 family members, 6 of whom were killed on May 17. She fled her house with her husband and two children when it was set on fire at about 8 p.m., but five other family members, including her 70-year-old father-in-law, were trapped on the upper floor. “After we got out of the house,” she said. “We waited a long time for them, but they never came out.”[4]

Question 4: How are older persons targeted or affected by violence and abuse in conflicts?

Killings of Older Civilians

The laws of war prohibit deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the killing of civilians or captured combatants in custody, which are war crimes. Human Rights Watch has documented government forces and non-state armed groups unlawfully killing older civilians in numerous countries. Older civilians have been killed and injured by small arms, heavy weapons, explosive weapons with wide area effects, and chemical and other banned weapons.[5]

In Gaza, between October 7, 2023 and March 22, 2025, 5,411 people age 55 and over were killed during the Israeli military operations, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health.[6]

Summary Executions

Human Rights Watch has documented summary executions of older persons by government forces and non-state armed groups.[7]

In Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, Tigrayan forces summarily executed dozens of civilians in two towns they controlled between August and September 2021. One woman said that just before Tigrayan forces left Chenna on September 4, they killed her 60-year-old father and her 67-year-old great uncle:

Just before they left, [Tigrayan fighters] took my father and great uncle outside the front of the compound. Two of them tied my father’s hands behind his back and then shot him. Four of them then shot my great uncle.[8]

Arbitrary Detention

Government forces and non-state armed groups have arbitrarily detained older persons.[9]

In Ukraine, Russian forces held over 350 civilians for 28 days in March 2022 in the basement of the village schoolhouse in Yahidne, 15 kilometers south of Chernihiv city, without ventilation in extremely cramped and unsanitary conditions. They severely limited peoples’ ability to leave the basement, even for brief periods, arbitrarily depriving them of their liberty. During this time, 10 died, all older persons.[10]

Human Rights Watch has documented abuses by factions of the Türkiye-backed Syrian National Army, which, following the fall of the Assad government in Syria on December 8, 2024, dissolved its factions and integrated them into the new military. One displaced Kurdish man told Human Rights Watch that his 70-year-old father, who refused to leave Afrin after the 2018 Turkish invasion, was detained on four separate occasions between June 2018 and January 2020 by members of the Sultan Suleiman Shah Division, also known as al-Amshat. Each time, he spent between 14 and 22 days in detention and was forced to pay between US$2,000 and US$3,500 for his release.[11]

Torture and Other Ill-Treatment

Human Rights Watch has documented cases in which government forces subjected older persons to torture and other ill-treatment, including beating and kicking, hanging people in stress positions, breaking bones, and denying medical treatment, food, and water in detention. In some cases, this treatment resulted in death.[12]

In Ethiopia in November 2020, Amhara Special Forces arrested a 60-year-old farmer and beekeeper from Sheglil village in Western Tigray. The security forces detained him in a school for over a week and beat him every night. Amhara Special Forces pierced through his finger with a nail and cut him on his right arm and back with a farming tool. They hung him by one of his feet, upside down by a tree in the school compound and beat him in the back with a stick. “My feet don't function well now,” he said. “The Special Forces finally untied me and released me from the tree when my foot started to bleed.”[13]

More than 28,000 photos of deaths in the former Syrian government’s custody were smuggled out of Syria and first came to public attention in January 2014. Human Rights Watch found that there was widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease in Syrian government detention facilities, often leading to detainees’ deaths.[14] A former detainee of the previous Syrian government’s Branch 235 of Military Intelligence, said that 83 people died in his cell during his nine months of detention in 2014. He described the death of an older prisoner suffering from severe diarrhea:

There was one older detainee, he was like an uncle to me and my brother. He got diarrhea and shut down. He stopped eating and started defecating on himself. On the day of his death, in March [2014], the whole cell prayed for his soul.[15]

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Human Rights Watch has documented the rape of older women during armed conflict.[16]

Rape has been a consistent feature of South Sudan’s war, committed by all parties to the conflict.[17] Human Rights Watch learned of at least two rapes and an attempted rape during government operations between December 2018 and March 2019 in Yei River state. One of the survivors, a woman in her late 50s, said that a soldier made her carry looted property, beat her with a gun, and raped her.[18]

On April 15, 2023, armed conflict broke out in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an independent military force, and rapidly spread to other parts of the country. Service providers witnessed widespread conflict-related sexual violence in Khartoum since the conflict’s onset. Older women were raped by multiple perpetrators, including in the context of rape of several female members of the same family. A service provider and women’s rights defender provided support to a 60-year-old woman who had been raped alongside her daughter and granddaughter by RSF forces in their home in Khartoum North. The woman’s efforts to protect her relatives from rape were in vain, as the assailants goaded each other on, she said.[19]

Abduction and Kidnapping

Armed groups have abducted and kidnapped older persons, including in targeted attacks on community leaders.[20]

In the Sahel, because community leaders are often older men, the abduction of community leaders means that more older men will be affected.[21] In Burkina Faso in 2020, armed Islamist groups abducted several local government officials and prominent elders, later killing some of them. In August 2020, the 73-year-old Grand Imam of Djibo, Sonibou Cisse, was executed several days after being taken off a public transport vehicle south of Djibo.[22]

Hostage-taking is a violation of the laws of war and a war crime. The Hamas leadership has said that taking hostages was core to their assault plans in Israel on October 7, 2023. The Qassam Brigades and other armed groups took 251 people hostage on October 7, including older persons, among them Holocaust survivors, and people with dementia.[23] As of March 21, 2025, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum reported that seven hostages in their 70s and 80s were still being held.[24]

Destruction and Looting of Civilian Property and Infrastructure

Human Rights Watch has documented the destruction and looting of civilians’ property during armed conflicts, from their furniture and savings to their houses and businesses. Older persons have described the devastation of losing everything they have spent their lives working towards, as well as the loss of family members and livelihoods. The looting and destruction of homes and property may have an increased effect on older persons who may have been displaced more than once, get separated from the rest of their family, and may find it more difficult to rebuild their lives than younger people.[25]

In Cameroon, a 61-year-old man lived in the bush for three years after fleeing his village of Kake 2 in the South-West region in 2017. He said:

The BIR [Bataillon d'Intervention Rapide] soldiers were wearing dark uniforms with “BIR” written on their helmets. They broke into my house and looted it. They removed the zinc on the roof. They fired at the walls. I could see the signs of the bullets. They also destroyed the door. They stole my TV, radio, chairs, beds, and 300,000 CFA [US$530]. I estimate the loss at 3 million CFA [$5,306] approximately. It has been a catastrophe for me. I was left with nothing. All my stuff, my property, my money. I am living from hand to mouth and from time to time I am forced to beg. This is humiliating.[26]

Institutional Care Facilities

Older persons living in institutional care facilities in areas of conflict face particular challenges.

In Ukraine in 2022, the director of an older persons’ home in Kyiv said he tried to shield older persons from the realities of the war to prevent traumas of the past returning. In Bucha, the bodies of six older persons were found in a nursing home in early April 2022. The cemetery workers who found them said they had died from hunger.[27]

Question 13: What challenges do older persons face in accessing medical care and medication in conflict situations?

Older persons in conflict areas have been subjected to attacks by artillery shells, rockets and bombs that destroy and damage hospitals and other healthcare facilities.[28]

Government forces and non-state armed groups have also denied older persons’ access to health care during conflict. Israeli forces occupying hospitals in Gaza in 2023 – 2024 severely interfered with the treatment of wounded and sick patients, causing deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients, amounting to war crimes. Medical workers told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces denied doctors’ pleas to bring medicine and supplies to patients and blocked access to hospitals and ambulances, leading to the deaths of wounded and chronically ill patients.[29]

Ansam al-Sharif, who had been hospitalized after losing her leg in an Israeli airstrike, said Israeli soldiers told patients at Nasser hospital to sleep upstairs but to go downstairs from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. “We stayed there for four days with no food, water, or medicines,” she said. Al-Sharif witnessed the deaths of four older patients during this time.[30]

Sarah al-Deiry, a 76-year-old Palestinian woman with a disability and multiple medical conditions, died in September 2024 while waiting to be evacuated from Gaza for treatment.

Question 22: What legal or policy changes are needed to enhance their protection?

While older persons, like all civilians, are protected by international humanitarian law and international human rights law during armed conflict, in practice their needs and protections are often disregarded by the parties to the conflict. Human Rights Watch recommends the following:

To Governments Involved in Armed Conflicts

• Abide by international humanitarian law and human rights law, including with respect to ending abuses and minimizing harm to older persons;
• Investigate alleged violations of international law, including against older civilians, and appropriately hold those responsible to account;
• Ensure all strategies for civilian protection include specific references to the circumstances and requirements of older civilians;
• Ensure the United Nations and other impartial humanitarian agencies have full access to populations needing assistance, including older persons;
• Ensure people, including older persons, have access to avenues of redress for violations of their rights; and
• Enable the meaningful participation and representation of older persons, including their representative organizations, in strategies for civilian protection, humanitarian action, conflict prevention, resolution, reconciliation, reconstruction, and peacebuilding.

To National Legislatures

• Hold hearings into the impact of armed conflict on older persons to hear directly from those affected, examine information produced, and make recommendations on ensuring protection of older civilians in armed conflict and providing redress for violations of their rights.

To National Human Rights Institutions

• Monitor and investigate alleged violations of international law against older persons in armed conflict and make the findings public; and
• Receive, investigate, and address complaints of rights violations against older persons so that victims and their families can seek redress.

To the Leadership of Non-State Armed Groups

• Abide by international humanitarian law, including with respect to ending abuses and minimizing harm to older persons; and
• Take appropriate disciplinary action against armed group members responsible for abuses, including against older persons.

To the United Nations Security Council

• Ensure that the need for enhanced protection of older civilians, including older persons with disabilities and older women who may be at particular risk, in armed conflict is recognized and addressed in a comprehensive manner in the work of the Security Council;
• Request that reports related to conflict situations submitted to the UN Security Council include specific information about the situation of older persons in armed conflict and their enhanced need for protection; and
• Require that UN agencies, missions, and country teams monitor and regularly report on the situation of older persons in all conflicts and humanitarian crises.

To the United Nations Human Rights Council

• Ensure that the need for enhanced protection of older civilians, including older persons with disabilities and older women who may be at particular risk, in armed conflict is recognized and addressed in a comprehensive manner in the work of the Human Rights Council;
• Request that reports related to conflict situations submitted to the Human Rights Council include specific information about the situation of older persons in armed conflict and their enhanced need for protection; and
• Include protections against abuses in armed conflict in a new international, legally binding instrument on the rights of older persons.

To United Nations and Other Peacekeeping Missions

• Ensure that human rights officers thoroughly investigate and publicly report on all abuses in armed conflict, including abuses against older persons;
• Ensure that international peacekeeping troops deployed to conflict zones are appropriately equipped, supported, and mandated to effectively protect older people as well as other civilians in need of protection; and
• Promote awareness of the rights of older persons across all UN departments and agencies involved in peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations and boost the capacity of those departments and agencies to protect those rights.

To Humanitarian Agencies

• Assist relevant government authorities to ensure that displaced older persons have access to adequate food, health care, shelter, and psychosocial (mental health) support. Provide older persons with equal access to information about these and other services;
• Ensure the participation of older persons in the design, implementation, and monitoring of humanitarian assistance;
• Interview older persons directly as part of needs assessments to avoid the risk of older persons being overlooked in household-level surveys;
• Include analysis of the specific needs of older persons in humanitarian response plans and funding proposals;
• Ensure that facilities in displacement camps, including access to sanitation facilities, are accessible to older persons; and
• Ensure that information campaigns, safe spaces for women and girls, and health services, are inclusive and accessible to displaced older persons so they can report sexual and gender-based violence, obtain health and support services, and seek redress.

To Donors

• Ensure the inclusion of older persons in humanitarian assistance by including older persons in humanitarian needs assessments, making all aid accessible, and having partners report implementation disaggregated by age, gender, and disability;
• Incorporate criteria to include older persons in funding guidelines and program portfolios, aligning with wider inclusion mainstreaming initiatives and coordinating with other donors to ensure a common approach; and
• Ensure that support to UN agencies includes requirements to effectively monitor and report on humanitarian assistance to older persons.