Kurdish fighters were deployed on Monday for an assault on a prison attacked by jihadists in Hassaké, Syria, raising serious concerns about the fate of hundreds of minors still detained. Nearly 45,000 people fled their homes after the prison storm and intense fighting ensued, according to the UN.
On January 20, more than a hundred Islamic State (IS) jihadists stormed Ghwayran prison with truck bombs and heavy weapons. Violent clashes followed for several days around and within this prison in northeastern Syria.
102 jihadists dead in the fighting
According to a new report established on Monday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), 154 people were killed in five days of fighting between Kurdish forces and jihadists – 102 jihadists, 45 Kurdish fighters and seven civilians. Spearheading the fight against ISIS, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led coalition have consolidated their positions around the prison, with a view to carrying out an assault, according to the OSDH.
But their progress is hampered by the presence of minors in the prison, taken “hostage” and used as “human shields” by the jihadists, according to an FDS press release. Previously detained in a “rehabilitation center”, these minors are now locked up in a dormitory, they assured.
An overcrowded prison
Some of these minors, numbering 850, are as young as 12, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which called for their protection and underlined the “risk that children are injured or recruited from strength” by Daesh. For Sara Kayyali, researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), “children are indeed trapped” in the prison, most aged between 12 and 18 years old.
Ghwayran prison – a former school converted into a penal center three years ago during the defeat of IS – was largely overcrowded before the assault, with at least 3,500 jihadists among the detainees according to the OSDH.
Triggered in March 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the war in Syria has become more complex over the years with the involvement of regional and international powers and the rise of jihadists. Despite its defeat in 2019, IS still manages to carry out deadly attacks through sleeper cells.