The Story of Two Girls in Tal Abyad and Kobane
Maryam (15) had just escaped, I interviewed her in Tal Abyad. Fidaa (18) disappeared 6 April. Her sister Lina started a press campaign.
The stories of two girls: one in Tal Abyad, the other one in Kobani
Lina Mohamed (22), who lives in Norway, started a campaign for her younger sister Fidaa, who disappeared in Kobani/Ayn al-Arab on April 6, on the day she turned 18. Unfortunately, the kidnapping of young Kurds, Assyrians, Arabs and Yazidis by SDF continues, despite the SDF leadership in Geneva signing a protocol promising to stop this practice.
UN News on 1 July, 2019 UN published that a “New UN-Syrian Action Plan signals an ‘important day’ for child protection, says UN envoy. The top UN official charged with representing the interests of children caught up in armed conflict, has signed a landmark new agreement on child protection with the Force Commander of a main Syrian opposition military alliance, it was announced on Monday, aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children under the age of 18.”
“A welcome commitment”, UN News wrote, The Action Plan was the result of months of UN-SDF engagement, in close consultation with the Special Representative. Showing a picture of the signing with the text: Virginia Gamba, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, and Mazloum Abdi, Force Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, sign a Plan of Action to stop recruiting child soldiers, 29 June 2019., by UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferre.
No one knows how many minors are currently in SDF military camps, estimates range from 200 to 400, a Western diplomat told the author last year.
Maryam in Tal Abyad
At the beginning of February I met Maryam, a 15-year-old Kurdish teenager. During my interview with the chief of military police in Tal Abyad, about Syrians coming from regime and SDF areas, he told me about a 15-year-old Kurdish girl who had just arrived in Tal Abyad. And asked me if I might be interested in talking to her. Maryam had meanwhile been detained by the military police in Tal Abyad and about half an hour later she was taken to a room, with a female police officer accompanying her, where I was able to talk to her.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Rena in Syria to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.