WASHINGTON, Nov 21: Thousands of children around the world have suffered pain and distress as a result of US counter-terror policies and practices, says an Amnesty International report distributed on Tuesday.

“Some have been held in indefinite virtually incommunicado detention without charge or trial. Some have been subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the report claimed.

The rights group reported that US authorities are believed to have held at least 17 children at Guantánamo Bay. Four of them, possibly more, remain there.

Another detainee, Yassar al-Zahrani, was reportedly 17 when he was detained. He died in Guantánamo in June 2006, after apparently hanging himself.

Only three of the children held in Guantánamo were separated from the adult detainees, though international law requires special protections for detainees under 18. The others have been detained in the same harsh conditions as adults, including prolonged solitary confinement, isolation from their families and with no access to education, the report noted.