Kurdish authorities have promised they will help a Canadian man locate and visit his 4-year-old niece, who is stranded in a detention camp in northeastern Syria. Her parents and siblings were killed in front of her eyes in the final days of the war against ISIS.
The girl’s name is Amira. She was found wandering alone and taken to the al-Hol refugee camp where more than 11,000 foreign women and children are now being detained. Her exact location in the sprawling camp is unknown.
According to Amira’s uncle, who lives in Toronto, Canadian government officials have stonewalled his efforts to rescue the child. They have demanded DNA evidence before issuing travel papers to enter Canada.
Out of frustration, the uncle is planning to travel to Syria in the hope of finding Amira and eventually, bringing her to Canada. Other countries—France, Sweden, Australia, Belgium—have all rescued orphans with the help of Kurdish authorities who control two camps in the area.
But finding his niece may not be easy. He was advised by the region’s foreign affairs minister, Dr. Abdulkarim Omar, not to travel until Amira’s location has been confirmed.
“It is very had to find children in the camp because usually they are with someone else and they change their names and don’t admit they have the children with them.”
Conditions there are described as desperate, especially the lack of water and medical care. At least 33 Canadian women and children are detained in the two camps; their husbands were either killed fighting with ISIS, or imprisoned.
After an outbreak of stabbings, Kurdish guards have carried out nighttime raids looking for mobile phones, as well as confiscating knives and scissors used for cooking. Some of the women say the guards ransacked their tents and stole whatever valuables they could find.
“Today was totally crazy,” said one woman, in a text obtained by CTV News. “They did an all out search and entered every single tent in the camp.” She described masked soldiers with guns surrounding the camp.
A French woman was reportedly shot and killed by a stray bullet during one of the raids.
Of the Canadian women held in al-Hol, many fear for their lives and the safety of their children.
One woman, who spoke to CTV News last February and is desperate to return to Canada, sent voice messages describing the chaos and danger.
There is a fierce ideological struggle inside the camp driven by the wives of fighters who remain committed to ISIS. In a recent video, several women were shown standing in front of an ISIS flag, cursing and threatening their Kurdish captors.
“You think you’ve got us imprisoned in your rotten camp. But we are a ticking bomb. Just you wait and see. “
The video ends with several young children, their faces blurred, calling for jihad.
“God is great,” they chant. “The Islamic state will prevail.”
Resistance to the extremists can be dangerous. Some women have been beaten and stabbed for expressing a desire to return home. One Canadian woman has had her tent burnt twice.
