BEIRUT — The
UN said on Sunday that minors were
still being detained in a northeast Syria prison attacked last month by Daesh,
calling their conditions "precarious".
اضافة اعلان
International rights groups, including
Save the Children and
Human Rights Watch have previously said that 700 boys had been
in the Ghwayran jail before the January 20 operation.
Aged between 12 and 18, they include many
who had adult relatives inside the prison and were transferred from nearby
displacement camps housing thousands of children of Islamist extremist
fighters.
"
UNICEF met with some of the children
still detained in the Ghwayran detention center," the UN's child agency
said in a statement.
"Despite some of the basic services now
in place, the situation of these children is incredibly precarious," it
added, without specifying how many minors were still detained.
Farhad Shami of the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces told AFP that "hundreds" of minors were still being
held in Ghwayran, refusing to disclose an exact figure.
"They are being kept in a safe
place," he said
The Daesh prison break attempt from the
Ghwayran jail in Hasakeh city triggered a week of clashes inside and around the
Kurdish-run facility, leaving hundreds dead, before Kurdish-led forces
recaptured the jail.
It was the largest Islamist extremist
operation in Syria since the group's territorial defeat in 2019.
Jail visit
UNICEF said it was working to immediately
provide care for the minors and confirmed that it "is ready to help
support a new safe place in the northeast of
Syria to take care of the most
vulnerable children".
On Sunday, the SDF said in a statement that
UNICEF was the first UN agency granted permission to visit the jail since the
attack.
"The delegation was provided with
information on the status of the Deash-linked teenagers," the SDF added..
Video footage of the visit posted on social
media networks showed around a dozen boys, many covered in blankets, in a
prison cell.
Kurdish authorities have repeatedly blamed
the international community for failing to support efforts to rehabilitate and
repatriate Islamist extremist children.
Ghwayran housed at least 3,500 Daesh
suspects before last month's attack.
Kurdish authorities maintain that no
prisoners escaped but the Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday said that hundreds of extremists had gotten away.
"Some of them have crossed to
Turkey," the war monitor said.
"Others have arrived in areas held by
Turkey-backed rebels in Aleppo's countryside, while some remained in hiding in
zones controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration," inside
Syria, it added.
The Observatory, which relies on sources
inside Syria, said the escapees include two senior leaders who are now residing
in the Turkish-held Syrian town of Jarablus near the Turkish border.
On Thursday, Daesh leader Abu Ibrahim
al-Qurashi died during a US raid in the town of Atme in the northwestern region
of Idlib — Syria's last major opposition bastion.
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