Sixty-two children have died this year alone, averaging two children per week, in the Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, home to displaced persons and families of Islamic State fighters, according to an international organization on Thursday. The camp hosts about 62,000 people, half of whom are Iraqi, including around ten thousand from the families of foreign Islamic State fighters, who are held in a special, heavily guarded section.
The organization "Save the Children" reported that 62 children died in the camp this year from various causes. It stated that "many of the wealthier countries in the world have failed to repatriate the majority of the children who originate from them and are stranded in the Roj and Hol camps" in areas controlled by Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria.
Today, forty thousand children from sixty countries live in the camps, growing up in extremely difficult living conditions. The Al-Hol camp witnesses security incidents from time to time, including escape attempts, attacks against guards or humanitarian workers, and murders using knives and silenced weapons. The organization recorded at least 73 people killed this year, including two children.
The Roj camp houses a few thousand people, mostly foreigners, and also experiences security incidents and escapes, although security there is stricter compared to Al-Hol. The organization conducted interviews from behind the fence with children living in the section designated for foreigners in Al-Hol.
In May, an 11-year-old Lebanese girl named Mariam said, "I can’t bear this life anymore; we do nothing but wait." Later reports indicated that Mariam was killed and her mother was injured during a failed escape attempt.
Since the declaration of the defeat of the Islamic State in March 2019, the Kurdish self-administration with limited resources has been urging concerned countries to repatriate their citizens held in prisons and camps or to establish an international court to try jihadists in Syria. The United Nations has also urged concerned countries to repatriate their nationals without delay.
However, France and a few other European countries have only managed to repatriate a limited number of orphaned children. "Save the Children" reported that France has only brought back 35 children of at least 320 living in the camps, while Britain has only repatriated four, and it is believed that 60 children still remain in Syria.
Sonia Kouch, the director of the Syria program at the organization, noted, "What we see is simply the abandonment of children by governments who are nothing but victims of the conflict." She pointed out that 83% of foreign citizen repatriations have taken place to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Russia. In addition to the camps, hundreds of foreign jihadists who joined the extremist group are held in prisons run by Kurdish fighters.
