BEIRUT: Two children die every week in Al-Hol, one of the overcrowded Syrian camps where families with suspected links to the Daesh group are stranded, Save the Children said on Thursday.
The charity said many countries, including EU states, were abandoning thousands of children in their desert limbo, vulnerable to violence, fires, malnutrition and illness.
Save the Children said a total of 40,000 children from 60 different countries were living in dire conditions in the camps of Roj and Al-Hol in northeastern Syria.
“Many of the world’s richest countries have failed to bring home the majority of their children stuck in” the two displacement camps, the group said in a statement.
It said 62 children had died of various causes so far this year, including violence, disease and accidents.
Save the Children said a total of 73 people, including two children, were murdered in Al-Hol alone so far this year.
The remote camps managed by the Kurdish forces that control the area were meant to house the families of men who had been detained over suspected ties to the Daesh group.
However, they also hold many families who simply fled Daesh occupation of their homes in Iraq and Syria. Some have been there for more than four years.
Save the Children interviewed several children trapped behind the fences of Al-Hol, where they live like prisoners and from which their governments are unwilling to repatriate them.
“I cannot endure this life anymore. We do nothing but wait,” said one 11-year-old Lebanese girl who was interviewed in May and was since reportedly killed during a failed escape attempt in a water truck.
The charity said France had 320 children held in both camps but had only repatriated 35. The United Kingdom has 60 and only brought four home.
“What we are seeing here is governments simply abandoning children, who are first and foremost victims of conflict,” said Sonia Khush, director of Save the Children’s Syria response.
She said 83 percent of repatriation operations so far had been to Uzbekistan, Kosovo, Kazakhstan and Russia.
The Kurdish authorities running the area consistently said they did not have the capacity to organize trials for all the detained foreign suspects nor support their families.
France and other Western countries have been wary of the impact mass repatriations could have on domestic security and public opinion.
Countries ‘abandoning thousands of Syrian children in desert limbo’
https://arab.news/2d69q
Countries ‘abandoning thousands of Syrian children in desert limbo’
- Charity says 62 children died of various causes in northeastern Syria camp this year
Kuwait airport targeted as Iran presses on with attacks on Gulf states
KUWAIT CITY/DUBAI: Gulf nations on Sunday reported new missile and drone attacks, while Iran vowed to press on with strikes against neighboring countries as the war entered its second week.
Kuwait’s defense forces were “responding to a wave of hostile drones” that penetrated the country’s airspace, accoring to the Defense Ministry.
“The fuel tanks of Kuwait International Airport were attacked by drones in a direct targeting of vital infrastructure,” the Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA) reported, quoting a statement by the Public Authority for Civil Aviation.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense was also reporting a wave of drone attacks, saying 21 unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted and destroyed in the last four hours.
Major General Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said in separate posts on X that 13 drones were intercepted and destroyed east of the national capital, Riyadh city, while eight drones were shot down just after entering Saudi air space.
Qatar’s defense ministry said on Sunday that the country was targeted a day earlier by 10 ballistic missiles and two cruise missiles fired from Iran, but most of them were intercepted and caused no casualties.
Before midnight on Saturday, loud explosions were heard in Dubai, the Qatari capital Doha and Bahrain’s Manama, with attacks reported in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, where the national oil company announced a “precautionary” cut to production.
The attacks came despite Iran’s president earlier apologizing to Gulf countries for earlier strikes. He had said they would no longer be targeted unless strikes were launched from their territory first.
Hours later, Iran said it would continue conducting strikes on sites in Gulf countries which were “at the disposal of the enemy.”
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said in a rare televised address that the Emirates were in “a period of war” and “will emerge stronger” from it.
Dubai authorities said Saturday evening one person had been killed by debris from an “aerial interception,” adding they were a Pakistani national.
Dubai airport closed, reopens
Earlier in the day, Dubai closed its main airport — the world’s busiest for international traffic — after authorities said an unidentified object was intercepted nearby.
The government said there had been “a minor incident resulting from the fall of debris after an interception,” without directly mentioning the airport. It said there were no injuries.
The Flightradar24 tracking website earlier showed planes circling above the airport in an apparent holding pattern.
In a statement since deleted from X, Emirates, the largest airline in the Middle East, had announced it was suspending all flights to and from Dubai until further notice, but later said it had resumed operations.
The UAE, a US ally and home to American military installations, has been the most heavily targeted nation in the Gulf during the war.
Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Defense said that of the 16 ballistic missiles fired at the country on Saturday, all but one had been intercepted, with that missile falling into the sea.
Of the 121 drones detected, 119 were brought down, while two fell within Emirati territory.
The barrage brings the number of ballistic missiles detected by the UAE since the start of the war last Saturday to 221, the defense ministry said, with the number of drones surpassing 1,300.
Flights from Dubai’s main airport had partially resumed on Monday despite daily drone attacks targeting sites in the UAE.
Last Saturday, four employees were injured and an airport terminal damaged as the war broke out following US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Iranian attacks have also hit Abu Dhabi airport, the upmarket Palm Jumeirah development and the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel over the past week, while drone debris caused a fire at the US consulate in Dubai on Tuesday.
Relentless air threats
Elsewhere in the Gulf on Saturday, Qatar’s defense ministry said its military had intercepted two missile attacks targeting the country.
Kuwait said Saturday night it had intercepted seven drones since dawn, with the attacks resulting “only in material damage from falling debris.”
And Bahrain said it has intercepted and 92 missiles and 151 drones since the start of the “brutal Iranian aggression.”
AFP journalists heard an explosion Saturday night in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, as authorities said one person was injured after rocket shrapnel fell in a public street.
In Saudi Arabia, the defense ministry said it had destroyed three ballistic missiles heading toward Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts American troops, as well as 17 drones over the Shaybah oil field in the southeast.
Kuwait also reported intercepting a drone, while the country’s national oil company announced a “precautionary” cut to its production of crude due to Iranian attacks and threats to the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for Gulf hydrocarbons.
Further north, Jordan accused Iran of directly targeting sites in the kingdom, saying Tehran had fired 119 missiles and drones in the past week.
“These missiles and drones were targeting vital installations inside Jordan and were not passing through our territories,” said military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hayari.
(With AFP)
