Children ‘Trapped’ in Syria Camps at Risk, Warns Aid Group 

Women and a child queue to receive humanitarian aid packages at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp in Syria. (AFP)
Women and a child queue to receive humanitarian aid packages at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp in Syria. (AFP)
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Children ‘Trapped’ in Syria Camps at Risk, Warns Aid Group 

Women and a child queue to receive humanitarian aid packages at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp in Syria. (AFP)
Women and a child queue to receive humanitarian aid packages at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp in Syria. (AFP)

About 7,000 children of suspected foreign extremists housed in overcrowded detention camps in northeast Syria are at risk of attack and must be repatriated, an aid organization warned Wednesday. 

Since the ISIS group's 2019 territorial defeat in Syria, around 56,000 relatives of defeated extremists have been detained in the Kurdish-controlled Al-Hol and Roj camps. 

"These children are trapped in desperate conditions and put at risk on a daily basis," said Matt Sugrue from Save the Children, a charity working in the camps. "There is no time to waste". 

The camps are administered by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, with more than 10,000 foreigners from around 60 countries held in a separate section. 

In 2021, 74 children died in Al-Hol, eight of them killed, according to Save the Children. 

Last month, the United Nations condemned the "brutal murder" of two Egyptian girls whose bodies were found in sewers at Al-Hol, and the charity Doctors Without Borders described the camp as "a giant open-air prison". 

A record 517 women and children were repatriated in 2022, representing a 60 percent increase from the year before, but Sugrue called for these efforts "to be sustained and stepped up".  

"At the rate foreign governments are going, we will see some children become adults before they are able to leave these camps and return home," he said.  

A total of 1,464 women and children have so far been repatriated to their home countries since 2019, according to Save the Children.  

"It breaks my heart to see my children growing up in this place, deprived of an education," said 32-year-old Mariam, a Tunisian mother of five living in Al-Hol, whose testimony was recorded by Save the Children.  

Syria has been devastated by more than 11 years of brutal conflict and large areas of the country remain outside of government control.  

Kurdish authorities in the northeast have repeatedly called on countries to repatriate their citizens, but foreign governments have mostly received them only sporadically, fearing security threats and a domestic political backlash. 



WHO Chief Says He Was at Yemen Airport as Israeli Bombs Fell Nearby

FILE: A crater is seen on the tarmac of the international airport of Yemen's capital Sanaa, April 29, 2015. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
FILE: A crater is seen on the tarmac of the international airport of Yemen's capital Sanaa, April 29, 2015. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
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WHO Chief Says He Was at Yemen Airport as Israeli Bombs Fell Nearby

FILE: A crater is seen on the tarmac of the international airport of Yemen's capital Sanaa, April 29, 2015. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
FILE: A crater is seen on the tarmac of the international airport of Yemen's capital Sanaa, April 29, 2015. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

A wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen's main airport Thursday just as the World Health Organization’s director-general said he was about to board a flight there. One of the UN plane’s crew was wounded, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.

The Israeli military said it attacked infrastructure used by Yemen's Houthis at the international airport in the capital Sanaa, as well as power stations and ports, alleging they were used to smuggle in Iranian weapons and for the entry of senior Iranian officials, The AP reported.

UN associate spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay said the rest of the U.N. team left the airport and are “safe and sound” in Sanaa, and the injured crew member is being treated in a hospital, she said.

Last week, Israeli jets bombed Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people. The US military also has targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days.

Israel's latest wave of strikes in Yemen follows several days of Houthi launches setting off air-raid sirens in Israel. The Houthis have also been targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor, calling it solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel's war in Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.