Children Experience Unspeakable Woes in Hawl Camp – Save The Children

Children in Hawl camp – North Press
Children in Hawl camp – North Press

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Deep trauma, hopelessness and nightmares are all forms of unseen suffering revealed in a new report by Save The Children about the misery experienced by children in Hawl Camp, northeast Syria, due to the violence they witness. 

Shootings, stabbings, strangulations have been seen regularly by children while going to the market or to school, leading some of them even fear for their lives, the report, which published on April 24, said. 

Last year, the Hawl Camp witnessed an average of more than two killings per week, rendering it one of the most dangerous places in the world for children. The main camp, which is home to Syrian and Iraqi nationals, had the biggest share (98%) of these assaults. 

According to the report, this brutality has left the children with many issues, not least of which are regular nightmares that involve killing and violence, insomnia,  resorting to aggressive behaviour, bed-wetting, vomiting, and losing their appetite; all of this made many of them, including very young children, feel hopeless about their futures.

“It is entirely unacceptable that we have five-year-old children in al-Hawl telling their parents that they want to die. Children cannot continue to live in such distressing conditions. The level of violence they experience in al-Hawl on a daily basis is appalling,” Save the Children’s Syria Response Director, Sonia Khush, said, addressing the horrible situation in the camp.

She also pleaded for the security situation to be addressed, and urged the children’s urgent need for “more psychosocial support to cope with their experiences.” However, she stressed that “the only lasting solution for this situation is to support children and their families to be able to safely and voluntarily leave the camp. This is no place for children to grow up.”

The Hawl Camp, 40 km east of Hasakah, is a house for 56,773 individuals numbering 15,431 families, 2,423 of which are families of the dead and detainees of the ISIS foreign descendants from over 60 countries, according to the recent obtained statistics.