The incident involving the assault on a Syrian refugee child in Gaziantep province, southern Turkey, has caused a significant uproar in the country. This comes after the 14-year-old boy continued to receive treatment for two days in a hospital within the province, where he is in the intensive care unit following brutal torture after being kidnapped days earlier.
Details of the incident began during a football game when the Syrian refugee child, Ahmed Z., was playing at a school in the "Cumhuriyet" neighborhood of Gaziantep. The boy had a dispute with Turkish children who informed their parents about the altercation, leading them to beat him and subsequently transport him to a secluded area on the outskirts of the province, where the boy endured extreme forms of torture.
The methods of torture inflicted on the Syrian child included being beaten with metal objects, having his hair pulled out, and being forced to have it put in his mouth. Additionally, the kidnappers pretended he was drowning by placing a bag over his face, according to accounts circulated by Turkish and international media from a Syrian rights activist and family members of the motherless child.
The torture methods didn’t stop at beating Ahmed with metal tools and pulling his hair; the kidnappers also burned his tongue and parts of his body with cigarettes before leaving him by the roadside, believing he had died.
