Survived Syrian Child Eye Witness to ISIL’s Crimes against Children
Here is a true story highlighting the crimes and violations committed by the so-called Islamic States in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) terrorist organization and other terrorist groups against children in Syria.
After he escaped the terrorism of the ISIL, Mohammad, a 14 years old student (level 9) from the city of Ein al-Arab in Aleppo northern countryside narrated the story of his kidnapping along with tens of his fellow students on May 29th, 2014. He told SANA the details of the mass kidnapping and the torture they were exposed to at the ISIL captivity centers.
Mohammad and his fellow students used to leave their hometown in a bus convoy to do their exams in a city far away from their town.
“After we had finished our last exam, the bus drove us at 12 in the noon to Ein al-Arab city. It took twelve hours to arrive at al-Jazeera resting station in an area linking between the town of Ein al-Arab and the city of Manbej. And, because of the clashes erupted between the Kurdish Public Protection Units and the ISIL terrorists, the buses supervisors decided to stop and spend the night in the buses,” Mohammad said.
At 1:30 a.m., Mohammad added, “an ISIL group attacked us. The group’s members separated the girls and sent them in the same buses to Aleppo, while they took the boys, who were (148) students, as captives and led them to al-Fateh mosque in Manbej.”
“The next day, they took us to a school in Manbej where we were exposed to different forms of torture by ISIL terrorists called Abou Shaheed al-Shami and Abou Anas, who themselves have a leader with a Saudi accent calling himself Abou Hashem al-Jazrawi. They tied our hands and suspended us with thick robs to be flogged. There, we were also forced to watch videos showing ISIL terrorists attacking different areas, torturing, beheading and hanging people most of them were abductees.”
“At the city’s squares we witnessed the crucifying and beheading of young people. They used to give us titles similar to theirs and forced us to follow what they called (religious) courses aiming to sew their extremist ideas and ideology in our minds,” Mohammad said.
“We saw a large number of Kurd abductees. They were students, teachers and sons of dignitaries in the area. The aim was to pressure their families to seek the exchange of the ISIL’s prisoners arrested by the KPPU with the abducted children,” he added.
A week after the abduction Mohammad and his companions were investigated. According to him, 30 children were accused of having links with the KPPU, so they were sent to Manbej prison. The 30 children were brought back to the school before the holy month of Ramadan but isolated in two rooms because they didn’t use to obey the terrorists’ orders. “There they were exposed to an extra dose of torture,” Mohammad said.
A month after abduction, Mohammad went on to say, 15 children were released because they couldn’t tolerate the difficult detention conditions as they were only 13 years old, whereas the children between 14 and 16 were kept as captives.
According to Mohammad, 13 children managed to flee by jumping over the school’s wall before the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, but three of them were recaptured in the same day and they received more torture. Fleeing attempts continueed to increase the number of children who escaped the terrorism of the ISIL to 18.
Mohammad pointed out that negotiation attempts between the KPPU and ISIL to exchange ISIL prisoners with abducted children were destined to failure several times because of the terrorists’ non-commitment to the agreement.
“There are still 102 kidnapped children seized by the ISIL terrorists to this moment and we were told that they were sent to Iraq for training on suicide attacks, Mohmmad said.
He ended his story raising a question about the unknown fate of the rest of the abducted children; a question that should be answered by the international community and by parties calling themselves children and human rights organizations.
Hamda Mustafa