Mazloum Abdi orders return of child allegedly recruited by SDF

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The father of a child allegedly recruited by a faction of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria (Rojava) issued a desperate plea to the military alliance’s leadership through Rudaw TV on Sunday, asking them to return his daughter home. SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi has since ordered Hasaka's Child Protection Office to have the child returned within two days, a relative has told Rudaw.

“I am asking as a Kurd, and what we are asking for is humane and ethical,” Omran Eliko, father of 16 year-old Rewan, said in a video message sent to Rudaw on Sunday. “We want our 16-year-old daughter to be returned to her school and her home.”

A close family member told Rudaw via phone on Monday the family is sure that a faction of the SDF took Rewan. Not specifying who recruited his daughter, the father asked SDF commander Mazloum Abdi to use his leverage to bring Rewan home. “We wish he would interfere and work towards the return of our daughter,” he said in the Sunday video.

Rewan Eliko was reportedly kidnapped on October 8 in Qamishli, where she goes to high school and plays on a football team. The teenager was living at her friend’s house because her town of Al-Darbasiyah is around an hour away from her school, said the relative.

He told Rudaw that the family received a phone call from Rewan’s friend just over a month ago, saying her mother had taken their child to the Qamishli Relations Office and she hasn’t seen her since.

Child recruitment should be “abolished in Kurdistan’s Rojava,” demanded the father. “This issue has to be solved once and for all.”

More than 800 children, boys and girls, were recruited to armed groups in Syria in 2019, according to a United Nations Children and Armed Conflict report issued in June. The verified cases were attributed to components of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Free Syrian Army, the Internal Security forces, the Islamic State (ISIS) group and other forces.

Of those recruited, 147 were below the age of 15. While boys were primarily those recruited, girls also were impacted.

In the face of the accusations against several SDF, the alliance banned the practice and last summer its commander Mazloum Abdi signed an action plan with the United Nations to prevent the recruitment of children and identify any minors serving within its ranks. A new complaints mechanism was established as part of that plan.

The conflict in Syria erupted in early 2011 when Assad's forces staged a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, the nine-year-old conflict has since killed at least 380,000 people and displaced millions from their homes.

“You know and we all know that the place of children is different. Children belong in school, and children are the future of this nation and this country,’’ Khalid Jabbar, the head of the Child Protection Office told Rudaw in Hasaka on Sunday.

“If all children are recruited to military service, where will the future be?”

Jabbar noted that sometimes families force their children into joining armed forces. However, his newly-established office has received around 11 complaints from families asking for the return of the children.

Mazloum Abdi orders return of child allegedly recruited by SDF

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