AL-HOL, Syria: They survived the Daesh group’s crumbling “caliphate” by a thread, but skeletal babies streaming into this displacement camp in northeastern Syria now face a race against malnutrition.
Truckloads of gaunt women and children fleeing Daesh’s last stand in the Euphrates Valley disembark daily at the Al-Hol camp, including 200 who arrived Thursday.
“They’re just skin and bones when they get here,” Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC) paediatrician Dr. Antar Senno told AFP at a makeshift clinic in Al-Hol.
They have suffered desperate conditions in the last pocket held by Daesh near the village of Baghouz, close to the Iraqi border, with little food, water or medicine.
KRC workers quickly scan the infants — particularly those under a year old — for thin limbs, taut and dried-out skin, or signs of diarrhea, said Senno.
“The team combs the entire reception tent. If they see a case that could be malnutrition, they immediately pull the child aside and put him in an ambulance,” he said.
But the journey does not end there.
Medics at Al-Hol, which has been flooded with more than 25,000 displaced people in recent weeks as military operations ramped up, do not have the capacity to treat severely malnourished children and must send them on to hospitals in the city of Hasakah an hour away.
That makes every moment even more precious, said Senno.
“They’re practically dead when they get here. But if we can catch them and send them to hospital in Hasakah, we can save their lives,” he said.
“It’s not about the same day. It’s about the same minute.”
More than 37,000 people have fled the shrinking Daesh-held enclave in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces bear down on the jihadists.
Many walk for days in the desert to reach an SDF-run collection point, where they are screened, provided with some food and water and loaded into trucks for the hours-long journey north to Al-Hol.
But that desert odyssey can be deadly — at least 35 newborns and infants have died either en route to the camp or just after they arrive, according to the United Nations.
One camp worker told AFP he saw women tumble out of trucks cradling lifeless babies, not knowing they had died on the road.
Three-month-old Ahmad had a close call, said his Iraqi mother, Istabraq.
“I was breastfeeding while in Baghouz but it wasn’t enough,” the 22-year-old said.
They escaped 20 days ago and were brought to Al-Hol.
“He was in really bad shape so, when we arrived here in the camp, they took him straight from the reception area to the hospital,” she told AFP inside her tent.
She was allowed to accompany him to Hasakah for the day but has not been authorized to return.
Authorities at Al-Hol have imposed tight security measures amid fears jihadists could be posing as fleeing civilians.
“If they could let me out, I just want to breastfeed him once,” she said.
Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) can be life-threatening for children, particularly infants who could literally waste away.
Across war-ravaged Syria, 18,700 children under five are suffering from SAM, according to the World Food Programme.
The KRC told AFP it had transferred dozens of SAM cases from Al-Hol to Hasakah in recent weeks, including 29 currently being treated there.
But infants can become malnourished even after they arrive at Al-Hol, said the Mar Ephraem medical charity, which operates a children’s clinic in Al-Hol.
Women streamed into the clinic on Thursday, placing sniffling infants on a measuring board then on a small scales to check if they were stunted or underweight.
“If they are suffering from chronic diarrhea and dehydration, we send them to the hospital immediately,” said nurse Marah Al-Sheikhi.
“It’s extremely urgent. If you’re an hour late, that makes a difference to a malnourished child,” she told AFP.
On Thursday, Mar Ephraem ordered one baby’s emergency transfer to the hospital.
Three-month-old Yaqin had arrived in Al-Hol over a week ago, carried by her mother, Shamaa.
“We’ve been here 10 days but her weight keeps going down, not up. She has diarrhea and is vomiting,” said Shamaa, 23, pacing anxiously as she waited for an ambulance to Hasakah.
“Now I found out she has severe malnutrition. I’m so scared for her,” she said, cradling Yaqin, who was so weak she was not even crying.
Barely alive after Daesh, Syrian babies haunted by malnutrition
Barely alive after Daesh, Syrian babies haunted by malnutrition
- Medics at Al-Hol, which has been flooded with more than 25,000 displaced people in recent weeks, do not have the capacity to treat severely malnourished children
- Across war-ravaged Syria, 18,700 children under five are suffering from sever acute malnutrition
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
