Syria’s Afrin IDPs demonstrate on International Day of Innocent Children
ALEPPO NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE, Syria (North Press) – A Social Welfare Office in Barkhodan camp for Afrin IDPs in the northern countryside of Aleppo, organized a demonstration for children who fled with their families from the Turkish invasion more than three years ago.
The children raised banners on which they wrote phrases expressing their suffering, such as “I want a house instead of a tent” and “I want to live in peace.”
June 3 marks the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression.
On August 9, 1982, the United Nations General Assembly announced the adoption of this occasion with the aim of publicizing the suffering of children from physical, mental and psychological abuse.
More than 300,000 people were displaced from Afrin region due to the Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed armed opposition groups’ military operation in January 2018, and settled in five camps and some destroyed villages in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
The number of children who lost their lives in the attacks on Afrin reached 35, and 101 children were wounded.
After the displacement, 23 other children were wounded as a result of the bombing on the northern countryside of Aleppo, according to the Kurdish Red Crescent in Afrin.
Many children have been deprived of their natural rights to play and to practice their favorite hobbies as a result of the physical disabilities they have been exposed to, a statement from the Social Welfare Office, said.
The statement added that the remaining children inside the city of Afrin are deprived of learning their mother tongue and are forced to learn the Turkish language, while a number of their schools have been converted into military barracks.
Children are also encouraged to take up weapons and sow extremist ideas through religious lessons, according to the statement.
Hevin Shamio, a social worker at the Social Welfare Office in Barkhodan camp, said that the number of children in Afrin IDP camps is about 3,636 children under the age of eighteen.
She added that they suffer from the negative effects of the horrific scenes and the sounds of shells and planes that will remain in their minds.
Shamio appealed to the UNICEF to stand by the children of Syria in general and the children of Afrin in particular, and secure a stable and healthy life for them.