A Kurdish-led militia alliance says it has regained full control of a prison in North-Eastern Syria, once seized by the Islamic State (IS) group six days ago.

According to the spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) tweeted that “all Daesh terrorists”inside Hasaka’s Ghwayran prison have surrendered.

At least 181 people have reportedly been killed in clashes since IS tried to stage a mass breakout on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the victims include 124 militants and inmates and 50 police officers, SDF fighters and prison guards.

The UK-based monitoring group reported on Wednesday (January 26, 2022) afternoon that the SDF was mostly in control of the prison, but it warned that militants might still be hiding in cells and sections that had not been searched.

The SDF is holding some 12,000 men and teenage boys detained during the war against IS in overcrowded prisons in areas of north-eastern Syria under its control, as well as 60,000 women, girls and young boys in locked camps.

The attack on Ghwayran prison on Thursday (January 20, 2022) night was the biggest IS operation since the jihadist group’s military defeat in Syria in 2019 and came amid signs of a resurgence.

Sleeper cells used explosives to blow holes in the outer walls and enter the facility to free fellow jihadists among the estimated 4,000 male inmates.

Hundreds of SDF fighters and members of the allied Asayish security force battled to take back the prison with the help of US fighter jets, helicopters and armoured vehicles.

The SDF said 23 prison guards held as hostages, have been freed and that more than 1,000 militants and inmates have surrendered before its spokesman, Farhad Shami announced the end of the operation on Wednesday, January 26, 2022.

Mr Shami made no mention in his tweet of the 700 children who the SDF said had been used as human shields by the IS militants and inmates.

But in an interview, Mr Shami said: “Had the safety of the children not been our major concern, we could have finished this operation in one to two days with heavy weapons.”

The United Nations (UN) children’s agency, Unicef, on Tuesday, January 25, 2022, said it had received “deeply worrisome reports of fatalities among children” trapped in the facility and called on all parties to allow them to be evacuated to safety.

Some detainees sent audio messages saying that they had seen the bodies of several children and warning that there was no food, water or medicine.

Human Rights Watch, Letta Tayler said in a tweet that she had been in contact with an 18-year-old American and a Canadian man inside the prison who told her that 15 to 20 boys could have been killed. Adding that they feared they would be shot if they tried to leave.

“It’s hard to guess honestly it’s very chaotic,” she quoted the Canadian man.

“One kid I evacuated as we were trying to stop his bleeding, he died in front of me. His leg was busted open… We tried to stop the bleeding with a shirt. He looked very young.”
A Canadian man who was also in the prison

Unicef said most of the 850 children, some as young as 12 years old, detained in prisons without charge by the SDF, were being held at Ghwayran before the attack on Thursday, January 20, 2022. Most were Syrian and Iraqi boys, while the rest, were nationals of 20 other countries.