BEIRUT — Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) on Monday deplored the fate of thousands of children living in
"a giant open-air prison" at Syria's notorious Al-Hol camp.
اضافة اعلان
Al-Hol is the largest camp for
displaced people who fled after Kurdish-led forces backed by a US-led coalition
dislodged Daesh fighters from their last scrap of territory in Syria in 2019.
In the country's northeast near
Iraq, Al-Hol is overpopulated with more than 50,000 residents, including
relatives of suspected Islamist extremists, displaced Syrians, and Iraqi
refugees.
Children make up 64 percent of the
Kurdish-run camp's population, and half are younger than 12, according to MSF.
"We have seen and heard many
tragic stories", the aid agency's Syria operations manager, Martine
Flokstra, said.
In a report, MSF cited Al-Hol's lack
of health care and incidents of violence, warning of the dangerous situation
facing children.
Some died "as a result of
prolonged delays in accessing urgent medical care," and there are stories
of "young boys reportedly forcibly removed from their mothers once they
reach around 11 years old, never to be seen again," Flokstra said.
Many of the camp's child detainees
were born there and are "robbed of their childhoods, and condemned to a
life exposed to violence and exploitation, with no education, limited medical
support, and no hope in sight," she added.
The report mentions the case of a
five-year-old boy hit by a truck who died after waiting several hours for
hospitalization.
In 2021, 79 children lost their
lives, MSF said.
Some were killed in violence,
including shootings inside the camp where attacks on guards or aid workers are
common. The majority of camp deaths are crime-related.
Among Al-Hol's detainees are more
than 10,000 foreigners from dozens of countries.
Housed in a separate part of the
camp called "the Annex", MSF considers these foreign nationals the
responsibility of their home countries which it said have failed in their
obligations to repatriate them.
"Insufficient progress is being
made to close the camp," Flokstra said.
Kurdish authorities have repeatedly
called on countries to repatriate their citizens from crowded camps.
But nations have mostly received
them only sporadically, fearing security threats and a domestic political
backlash.
Last month, four women and 13
children were repatriated to Australia from Al-Hol and another camp.
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