Activists warn against leaving foreign children in Syria’s Hawl
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Civil activists in Raqqa, north Syria, warned against leaving the children in an extremist environment in Hawl Camp east of Hasakah governorate, northeast Syria.
Save the Children organization warned “it will take 30 years before foreign children stuck in camps in northeast Syria can return home if repatriations continue at the current rate.”
Recent acts carried out by the Islamic State Organization (ISIS) sleeper cells in Hawl Camp recalled the imperative that a solution must be found for thousands of children and women stuck in the unsafe environment in Hawl Camp.
Hawl Camp is unsafe for the children as it seeds hardened ideologies which they are raised with, according to the human rights activist, Shawakh al-Ali.
Al-Ali called on the UN and the humanitarian organizations to “put programs directly supervised by them to rehabilitate the children.”
He held the countries with nationals in camps in northeast Syria responsibility for the future impacts if they would not repatriate their nationals.
Hawl Camp is a house for 56,000 people, 36,000 of which are underage, according to the camp’s manager Hamrin Hassan.
Khalid Sami, chairman of Human Rights Bureau in Raqqa, voiced concern over the current situation of women and children residing in Hawl Camp and the failure to repatriate them to their home countries.
“The flagrant continuous refusal of the countries to repatriate the children has contributed to insecurity and deterioration of human rights in northeast Syria,” Sami added.
The countries that have citizens stuck in northeast Syria should participate to set up rehabilitation centers for the children so they are repatriated and prevent them from absorbing extremist ideologies.