Sabah Anter barely holds back her tears as she caresses the photo of her daughter. The mother of six from Syria’s Qamishli lives in fear for her other daughters’ safety as the terrorist group YPG/PKK continues its practice of abducting children to bolster its ranks.
Anter, who lost her husband to a disease, was trying to make a living for her children in war-torn Syria’s Qamishli, partially controlled by the U.S.-backed terrorist group. Hadiya is her eldest daughter. She was only 16 when members of the terrorist group abducted her on her way to school two years ago.
The Syrian Kurdish mother is afraid of the same fate for her other children, including two daughters. All now have quit attending school because of abduction risk. Her primary concern now is hearing from her daughter. Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA) on Thursday, Anter recounted how her daughter was kidnapped. “She had a four-day course at her school. (YPG) took her away while she was still at school,” she said.
Anter contacted local security forces and later, United Nations officials in the region, but to no avail. Nobody could locate her. “She is just a child. All she ever wanted was to graduate from her school and become a teacher in the future,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to her, whether she is dead or alive,” she lamented. Anter said she tried to contact YPG, but they refused to show her her daughter.
PKK terrorist group and its Syrian offshoot, the YPG, recruited over 1,000 children in Syria in 2022, according to a recent report by the United Nations. The U.N. annual report on children in armed conflict covers January to December 2022.
According to the report, 32 children as young as 11 were recruited and used in Iraq. "I am gravely concerned by the recruitment and use of children by YPG/PKK. I urge them to end the recruitment and use of children and to release all children from its ranks," the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report.
There were over 2,438 grave violations against 2,407 children in Syria. As many as 1,696 children in Syria were recruited and used mostly by PKK/YPG and other armed groups and non-state actors.
The PKK terrorist group's Syrian branch, the YPG, recruited and used 1,274 children. International law prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting anyone under 18, and enlisting children under 15 is considered a war crime.
International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have repeatedly documented and criticized the PPK/YPG’s use of child soldiers. Though the PKK/YPG initially signed a pledge with Geneva Call – a Swiss humanitarian organization that works to "protect civilians in armed conflict" – to stop the use of child soldiers in 2014, its use of child soldiers has only increased since then.
