UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The boys said they approached the French soldiers because they were hungry. Some were so young they didn't quite understand the acts the soldiers demanded in return. One boy, 8 or 9 years old, said he did it several times to the same soldier, "until one day an older kid saw him and told him what he was doing was bad."

Another boy, 9, said he thought the soldiers had been urinating.

U.N. investigators heard such stories of sexual abuse from several boys in May and June 2014 in Central African Republic, where French soldiers were protecting a sprawling displaced persons camp in the conflict-torn capital, Bangui.

One year later, revelations about how the U.N. handled the boys' accounts have horrified people both inside and outside the world body. Statements marked "strictly confidential" have shown that its top human rights officials failed to follow up for several months on the allegations their own office had collected.

On Saturday, the high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said his office was sending a team to Central African Republic to look into what the statement called "possible further measures to address human rights violations," including sexual violence. The office also will ask "concerned states" what they have done to investigate them and prosecute anyone.

No arrests have been announced, and it's not clear where the accused soldiers, who were supporting a U.N. peacekeeping force, are now. The U.N. seems unable to say when the abuses stopped, or how long it continued to investigate.

On Friday, more documents were released by a non-governmental organization run by two former U.N. staffers that's calling for an independent investigation into the case. The documents show U.N. officials scrambling not so much to help a French inquiry into the allegations but to investigate the human rights staffer who told French authorities in the first place.

A separate report with the children's allegations, obtained by The Associated Press, says the first account was heard May 19 by a human rights staffer and a UNICEF child protection officer. The interviews continued through June 24. A Geneva-based human rights staffer shared the report with French authorities in July.

The boys' accounts are simple and stark. An 11-year-old said he had gone "looking for empty wrappings to play with" when a French soldier first called him over, later giving the boy food and a little money in exchange for oral sex. Another boy, 9, "had been severely beaten by his mother when he told her what had happened."

When approached by French authorities in Bangui, UNICEF referred them to the U.N.'s legal office in New York. UNICEF also gave the U.N.'s special representative for children and armed conflict information about the cases on July 16, UNICEF spokeswoman Najwa Mekki, said in an email Saturday. "In light of this case we are reviewing our practices, procedures and guidance" for staff and for reporting, she said.

The case has exposed a glaring weakness in a world body that considers human rights one of its three main pillars: It has no specific guidelines on how to handle allegations of child sexual abuse, and no requirement for immediate, mandatory reporting.

Even when French gendarmes showed up at the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bangui to investigate the allegations — the report shared with French authorities is on the mission's letterhead — they were told they had to go through proper U.N. channels and talk to the human rights office in Geneva instead.

That was in August. At the end of March, the U.N. finally handed France a redacted copy of the same report they already had. The U.N. says the report first given to the French included the names of the children and witnesses and was a breach of protocol.

The children's allegations didn't make their way to top officials at U.N. headquarters in New York for months. On Friday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told reporters he first heard about them this spring. When asked why the mission in Central African Republic didn't alert his office in New York right away, he said, "Some reporting lines maybe didn't function."

The NGO that on Friday released internal U.N. documents related to the case, AIDS-Free World, called for an independent investigation into the way the allegations were handled from the start.

"The grim reality is that those with experience within the U.N. system are unlikely to be surprised," its statement said. "They know that this is not an unusual case; it is simply one that has come, partially, to light."

A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office did not comment Friday. The spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that the documents "may or may not be authentic."

It is not clear whether a U.N. commission of inquiry on Central African Republic looked into the child sexual abuse allegations. It has said that because of limited resources it focused on incidents involving alleged deaths.

The commission's final report in December suggests that the U.N. secretary-general report alleged violations by all peacekeepers in Central African Republic, regardless of whether they are part of a U.N. mission.

But on Friday, his spokesman said the secretary-general only heard of the child sexual abuse allegations this spring.

Among the documents released Friday is a March 24 statement by the human rights staffer who interviewed the children. The statement is for the U.N. investigation into what it calls the "leak" to French authorities.

Between September and March, the staffer says, she didn't hear anything about the case.

But she offers, "I still have all the notes I took of the interviews if they would be of any help."

Child sex abuse claims shake U.N.

Beirut (AFP) - Islamic State group jihadists demolished a notorious government prison in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Saturday, as barrel bombs dropped by regime helicopters killed more than 70 civilians in Aleppo.

In neighbouring Iraq, government forces retook an area west of the city of Ramadi, which IS overran earlier in May.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS planted explosives that "largely destroyed" the Palmyra jail, which was for decades a symbol of abuses meted out on regime opponents.

Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad welcomed on social media the destruction of the long-feared prison at Palmyra, which IS seized 10 days ago after government forces pulled out.

In rebel-held areas of Aleppo province including the city itself, "at least 71 civilians were killed, and dozens wounded when regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs," the Observatory said.

In the worst carnage, 59 civilians, all male, were killed at a market in the jihadist-controlled town of Al-Bab, the Britain-based monitoring group's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"People often gather on Saturday mornings at the Al-Hail market in Al-Bab, which is why the number of dead was so high," explained Abdel Rahman.

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An image made available by Jihadist media outlet Welayat Homs on May 30, 2015, allegedly shows the T …

He said 12 people were also killed in barrel bomb attacks on Aleppo's rebel-held Al-Shaar neighbourhood, including eight members of a single family.

Victims' bodies were laid out on the streets of the neighbourhood, the limp blood-covered hand of one of them protruding from under a blanket, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.

- Rapid retreat -

Barrel bombs -- crude weapons made of containers packed with explosives -- have often struck schools, hospitals, and markets in Syria.

But Saturday's death toll was among the highest.

"This is one of the biggest massacres that regime planes have committed since the beginning of 2015," said the Syrian Revolution General Commission activist group.

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Civilians stand amid destroyed buildings in the eastern Shaar neighbourhood of the northern Syrian c …

The Observatory said regime forces also dropped barrel bombs Friday in Idlib province, now under the de facto control of rebels after regime forces withdrew, leaving Al-Qaeda and its allies to capture the city of Ariha and surrounding villages.

The tactic of carrying out air attacks on built-up areas after battleground losses has become common practise for Syria's regime, which ceded swathes of territory in May.

Following defeats in Idlib's provincial capital and at a massive military base nearby, government forces also lost the ancient city of Palmyra to IS jihadists on May 21.

In northeast Syria on Saturday, IS launched an assault on Hasakeh city, which has a large Kurdish population.

The Observatory said at least 10 pro-government forces and 10 jihadists were killed.

In a provincial town to the north, Kurdish militia executed at least 20 civilians Friday, including two children, after accusing them of being IS supporters, the Observatory reported.

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Civilians stand next to the bodies of those killed in a reported bomb barrel attack by the Syrian ai …

- Curbs on fleeing Anbar -

In Iraq on Saturday, government troops and allied paramilitary forces retook an area west of Ramadi, captured by IS two weeks ago.

"The Iraqi army and the Hashed al-Shaabi liberated the Anbar traffic police building in the 5K area west of Ramadi after a fierce fight," an army officer said.

Hashed al-Shaabi is an umbrella term for mostly Shiite militia and volunteers, and it has played a key role in Iraq's anti-IS fight.

But Human Rights Watch accused Iraqi authorities of blocking thousands of families from escaping violence in the mainly Sunni province of Anbar.

"Since April 2015, the government has imposed restrictions on entry into Baghdad and Babylon provinces affecting just under 200,000 people fleeing fighting" in Ramadi, the group said.

It said the restrictions effectively discriminated against Sunni Arabs.

"Prime Minister (Haider al-)Abadi should immediately order these restrictions lifted so that all Iraqis can seek refuge in Baghdad, regardless of origin or religious affiliation," said HRW.

And in Turkey, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu described as an election ploy the release of images allegedly showing Turkish intelligence trucks delivering weapons into Syria last year.

"The release (of the video footage) right now is an effort aimed at affecting the (June 7) elections," he told AFP.

In January 2014, security forces searched trucks near the Turkish-Syrian border on suspicion of smuggling arms into Syria and found Turkish national intelligence personnel on board.

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