Terrorist group PKK's Syrian offshoot YPG abducted another child for forced recruitment in the Aleppo province of northern Syria.
The PKK/YPG terrorists kidnapped 12-year-old E.Ş.K. from the Ayn al-Arab, also known as Kobani, district of Aleppo, Redor al-Ahmed, a spokesperson for the Kurdish Independent Association, told Anadolu Agency (AA).
Ahmed added that the terrorist group allowed no communication between the abducted children and their families.
The territory of Deir el-Zour east of the Euphrates River is under the control of the U.S.-backed YPG, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist group.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union – is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye during an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror.
After losing significant territory and countless terrorists, the group withdrew to its stronghold in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq near the Turkish border. At the same time, its Syrian branch took advantage of a power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war in 2011. It invaded several resource-rich provinces with the help of Washington.
The terrorists forced many locals to migrate, bringing their militants to change the regional demographic, seizing regional oil wells – Syria's largest – to smuggle oil and generate revenue for its activities.
The terrorists have been forcibly recruiting the children of local tribal communities.
According to a U.N. report, the YPG recruited more than 1,200 children in 2022 to use as soldiers. 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.
International law prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting anyone under 18, and enlisting children under 15 is considered a war crime.
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.
