A UN expert has criticize Syrian prison camps’ system of separating boys from their mothers. According to reports by an UN-backed right campaigner, the Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria have been forcibly taken boys from their mothers, under the pretense that, the boys poses security risk to the society. The report revealed that, boys as young as 11 years olds are been segregated from their parents.
During her trip to the northeastern part Syria, which was dubbed as the first independent human right expert to visit the camp, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, an independent UN rapporteur, bemoaned the continuous “mass arbitrary detention” in the notorious al-Hob camp, and other similar facilities.
However, human rights advocates in many years, have been urging countries in Europe and North Africa, to rescue their nationals from the camps, that have been the home of relatives of the Islamic State terrorist groups.
These requests are for the protection of innocent children who did not participate in the jihadist groups atrocities. Activists explained that, these children are at risk of being recruited in the activities of these groups.
Moreover, over 7,000 individuals have been taken back by approximately 36 nations since 2019, according to Ni Aolain’s team’s estimations, with more than 75 percent of them being women and children.
However, there are still tens of thousands of people left behind in the detention facilities with no apparent plans to leave, much less return to the nations where they or their families originally hailed from.
Ni Aolain blasted the usage of “dehumanization language” to describe 2, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds who were born on those territories without their will, as “Cubs of the Caliphate,” or youngsters from regions that were once within the authority of the Islamic State.
The UN rapporteur described the situation as “dire” in al-Hol, claiming that, over 49,000 people presently reside in the camp.
She further vented her distress regarding safety, access to medical treatment, and “scarcity of water” in camps, where temperatures reached 50 degrees Celsius and tents are the only form of cover.
“The second issue I want to highlight is the separation of hundreds of adolescent boys from their mothers without any legal procedure, in what I describe as ‘summary separation’ based on an unproven security risk that male children pose upon reaching the age of adolescence. Every single woman I spoke to made clear that it was the snatching of the children that provided the most anxiety, the most suffering, and the most psychological harm. The taking of these boys may in itself constitute a disappearance practice under international law, which is in direct contravention of multiple human rights obligations.”
Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Independent U.N. Rapporteur.
On the other hand, the Islamic State terrorist group came to power during the 12-year-old uprising-turned-civil war, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Large portions of Syria and Iraq were once under the thumbs of terrorists, but a counterinsurgency operations led by Iraqi and Syrian government forces, Kurdish forces, and an international anti-IS coalition, reclaimed those areas.
Also, there has been a growing concern in the northeastern Syria that, the new generation of terrorist might emanate from the al-Hol camp. However, Kurdish officials in the camps have embarked on a mission to safeguard boys in the camps from being recruited by the Islamic States.
Kurdish official have been implementing an intervention schemes, designed to segregate boys from their parents, and taken them to sensitization camps to educate them on acceptability and related subjects.
