Watchdog says 100s of boys missing from Kurdish Syria prison
ABC News
An international human rights group says hundreds of boys are missing from a Syrian Kurdish prison that held members of the Islamic State group and their families, after the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces fought IS militants for 10 days to retake the facility
BEIRUT -- Hundreds of boys are missing from a Syrian Kurdish prison that held members of the Islamic State group and their families, after the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces fought IS militants for 10 days to retake the facility, an international human rights group said Friday.
The report by Human Rights Watch came a day after IS’s top leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid on his safehouse in northwest Syria. President Joe Biden said al-Qurayshi had been responsible for the Syria prison assault, as well as genocide against the Yazidi people in Iraq in 2014.
The children are from a mix of backgrounds and nationalities. Some were brought from their own countries by their jihadi parents who joined the so-called “caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Syria and Iraq, while others were born there.
They were incarcerated because many governments have refused to repatriate them, while Kurdish authorities have expressed concern they may have extremist tendencies.
