LONDON: Australian boys held in detention camps in northeast Syria are set to be separated from their families and placed in men’s prisons, The Guardian reported.
At least 10 boys of various nationalities — family members of former Daesh fighters — were removed from Roj camp on Jan. 31 because they had celebrated their 12th birthdays, UN experts said.
Several Australian families in the camp have been warned that their male children will soon be placed in senior prisons upon turning 12.
A UN group of experts warned that most boys in Syrian camps had been detained for several years and were “victims of terrorism.”
They deserve the full protection of international human rights law, the experts added.
Children are typically removed from detention camps over radicalization fears and are jailed with adults in single-sex prisons.
The UN experts said: “The indefinite, cradle-to-grave, camp-to-prison detention of boys, based on crimes allegedly committed by their family members, is a shocking example of the legal black hole that northeast Syria currently epitomizes.
“The pattern of forcibly removing boys who reach the ages of 10 or 12 from the camps, separating them from their mothers and siblings and taking them to unknown locations is completely unlawful.
“We are extremely concerned that serious harm may befall these boys and fear they may be forcibly disappeared, and subject to sale, exploitation and abuse, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”
About 60 Australians remain in detention camps across northeast Syria, including women who claim that they were coerced into traveling to the region due to their marriages with slain Daesh fighters.
In October last year, the Australian government repatriated four women and 13 children from Roj camp.
But the families of the Australians remaining in Syrian detention camps are pressuring authorities into launching more repatriation missions.
Sources said that the government would continue its repatriation efforts but that further missions would prove “more complex.”
Save the Children Australia CEO Mat Tinkler said: “Failing to act now would be unconscionable…there is no excuse not to bring home these vulnerable children without delay.
“They are all Australian citizens who deserve full access to the education, healthcare and support systems available here, that will allow them to reintegrate and recover.”
If Australian boys are removed from their families and sent to men’s prisons, “they are left vulnerable by the lack of communication with their mothers, without any clear pathway for release,” Tinkler added.
