End military operations and killing of children in Nepal's schools - UNICEF

A military engagement in a Nepalese school that killed and wounded an unknown number of children marked a "new and deeply troubling note in the growing conflict in Nepal," the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said today.

"We have previously called for the protection of children in Nepal, and the agreement that children, their homes, and their play and recreational areas must be zones of peace. Children must be protected at all costs," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said in a statement.

During promising moves in Nepal towards peace earlier this year, UNICEF had called for a code of conduct that forbade, among other things, weapons in schools, recruitment of children and disruption of school activities, Ms. Bellamy said.

"Now every one these principles has been violated yet again, at the cost of the lives of children. Whatever the political arguments, whatever the cause or the counter-argument, the killing of children is just a matter for condemnation," she said.