A new Save the Children report published Thursday, “When am I going to start to live?”: The urgent need to repatriate foreign children trapped in Al Hol and Roj Camps”, found that everyday survival in both of the camps for displaced people in NE Syria continues to be a struggle for the estimated 40,000 children living there.
“62 children, or approximately two every week, have died of different causes in Al Hol so far this year,” the report said, adding that at least 73 people, including two children, have been murdered in Al Hol so far this year.
The report also underlined that only 40% of children in Al Hol are receiving an education, with years of traumatic experiences taking a toll on their mental health.
The Al-Hol refugee camp is a refugee camp on the southern outskirts of the town of al-Hawl in northern Syria, close to the Syria-Iraq border, which holds individuals displaced from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
It is controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As of February 2021, the camp's population was more than 60,000 having grown from 10,000 at the beginning of 2019 after the SDF took the last of the Islamic State's territory in Syria in the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani.
The refugees living in the camp are women and children from many countries, primarily Syria and Iraq.