QAMISHLI, Syria — Baby detainees at a jail in northeast Syria that was attacked by ISIS two weeks in the past are injured, hungry and thirsty, in line with the primary worldwide assist employee to see them because the siege.
“They simply managed to say a couple of phrases: that they’re hungry, they want water, they want medical care,” mentioned the official, Bo Viktor Nylund, UNICEF Syria’s consultant, who visited the Sinaa jail on Saturday. Jail authorities allowed him to view the kids via small, barred home windows within the metal cell doorways however to not communicate with them.
The makeshift jail, within the metropolis of Hasaka, that was attacked on Jan. 20 by ISIS suicide bombers and gunmen held about 4,000 suspected ISIS fighters and about 700 youngsters. Fears over the youngsters’ security grew after the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is in command of this breakaway area of Syria, mentioned that ISIS gunmen had used a few of them as human shields throughout the assault.
Lots of of inmates had been killed over 10 days because the Syrian Democratic Forces and American floor forces fought to retake management of the jail from the terrorist group.
The S.D.F. mentioned it misplaced 40 fighters and 77 guards and different jail employees. But it surely has not revealed particulars of the youngsters’ fates and has barred entry to journalists — and, till Saturday, to help organizations, like UNICEF and the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross, which is generally the primary to go to detainees.
{A photograph} offered by UNICEF to The New York Occasions confirmed the youngsters, their identities shielded, sitting barefoot on a damaged concrete and grime flooring with skinny mattresses lined finish to finish. Daylight via excessive home windows illuminated what seemed like blackened partitions. A few of the boys had blankets wrapped round their shoulders.
“We noticed a whole bunch of boys,” Mr. Nylund informed The Occasions on Sunday. “Fairly skinny and in want of a whole lot of companies, together with medical help.”
He mentioned that S.D.F. officers informed him on Saturday that there have been 700 detained minors — the identical quantity they gave earlier than the jail siege — and that he was proven “six or seven” cells, every with about 30 youngsters. Mr. Nylund estimated that the youngest prisoner he noticed was about 15.
He mentioned that the scent of smoke nonetheless hung within the air and that the jail’s partitions had been scorched, however that “they managed to get the fundamentals in place,” he mentioned, referring to the blankets and mattresses.
“But it surely’s been a struggle zone,” Mr. Nylund added.
The youngsters have been held within the makeshift jail since they had been separated from ladies and youthful youngsters after ISIS fell in 2019, and none have been earlier than a decide since being detained.
The S.D.F. has mentioned that the boys’ ties to the Islamic State make them harmful, and that a few of the older ones have been educated to combat, whereas human rights organizations think about them victims, youngsters taken to the Islamic State via no selection of their very own.
Prior to now three years, few assist organizations have been given even a glimpse of the youngsters, because the S.D.F. has restricted entry to them.
“We’ve been engaged on getting entry for the final yr plus,” Mr. Nylund mentioned of the Sinaa jail. “We’ve not spoken intimately to a single one in every of them.”
Final week, The Occasions noticed two our bodies that seemed to be these of youngsters amongst different our bodies discovered within the neighborhood across the jail the place residents reported seeing ISIS attackers throughout the siege. Jail clothes was additionally among the many stays. About 200 ISIS fighters had attacked the jail to attempt to escape detained comrades, and it was not clear whether or not the boys had escaped with grownup prisoners or been taken hostage by them.
Mazlum Kobani, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, informed The Occasions {that a} “very small quantity” of the youngsters had been killed within the operation to retake the jail and to arrest ISIS fighters.
Human Rights Watch mentioned that two detainees had informed it that they noticed youngsters killed throughout the preventing for the jail, and that one other detainee described how a baby bled to demise in his arms.
An S.D.F. official informed The Occasions final week that the boys had been moved from the Sinaa jail to security in a more moderen facility, however Mr. Nylund, the UNICEF official, mentioned he noticed them in the identical place the place they had been held earlier than the assault.
“We’ve no data,” an S.D.F. spokesman, Ferhad Shami, mentioned on Sunday when requested concerning the discrepancy.
Mr. Nylund mentioned UNICEF hoped to first present assist to the youngest prisoners and to those that had been sick or wounded. After that, he mentioned, the U.N. group will attempt to set up case recordsdata for the kids, with the intention of repatriating foreigners to 3rd international locations. Most international locations have refused to repatriate prisoners or households in detention camps from this area of Syria.
“We’ll do it on the situation that we now have steady entry as a result of until we do, we’re getting used,” Mr. Nylund mentioned in an unusually blunt remark concerning the lack of entry supplied by officers keen to point out they’re working with worldwide organizations, however much less keen to allow them to in.
“Let’s see that there’s an precise willingness to take this to the following degree as a result of, thus far, we now have not seen that this has truly occurred,” he mentioned.
UNICEF mentioned in an announcement saying the go to that the kids must be transferred to the care of kid safety businesses and that foreigners must be repatriated to their residence international locations.
“Youngsters related to and recruited by armed teams ought to all the time be handled as victims of battle,” it mentioned.