The report by a U.N. Human Rights Council panel found that at least 256 children were killed by government forces between mid-March and early November, some of them tortured to death.

“Torture was applied equally to adults and children,” said the assessment, released in Geneva. “Numerous testimonies indicated that boys were subjected to sexual torture in places of detention in front of adult men.”

The U.N. defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. The report was compiled by a panel of independent experts who were not allowed into Syria. However, the commission interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, including defectors from Syria’s military and security forces…

It quoted one former soldier who said he decided to defect after witnessing an officer shoot a 2-year-old girl in Latakia, then claim he killed her so she wouldn’t grow up to be a demonstrator.