Daily Sabah (Turkey)

16-year-old girl kidnapped by US-backed YPG terrorists in northern Syria

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U.S.-BACKED YPG/PKK terrorists kidnapped and forcibly recruited a 16-year-old girl in northeaste­rn Syria, according to local sources yesterday.

Terrorists continue to kidnap children by separating them from their families in areas under the terror group’s occupation.

The terror group kidnapped Ravan Umran Alliko on Friday as she was leaving school in a village in the city of Qamishli, the sources said.

Terrorists took Alliko to the socalled safety center in Qamishli’s western Himo village to forcibly recruit her.

The Alliko family went to the village of Himo on Friday and asked for the return of their child, but the terrorists claimed the girl was not with them.

Despite being called out numerous times by human rights organizati­ons, the U.S.-backed YPG/PKK terrorists continue to flout internatio­nal law by forcibly recruiting children.

Last month, the terrorist organizati­on also kidnapped a 13-year-old girl in Qamishli.

In July, four children, all under the age of 16, were kidnapped from the northeaste­rn Syrian towns of Ain-al Arab (Kobani), Qamishli and al-Darbasiyah. Similarly, in June, at least four girls between the ages of 11 and 17 were kidnapped in the war-torn country.

Having suffered severe blows to its membership in recent years, the YPG/ PKK has establishe­d teams to seek out and brainwash children and teenagers, forcing them to join the terrorists’ ranks and threatenin­g them if they do not cooperate.

According to reports by security forces, these teams have kidnapped Syrian orphans between the ages of 10 and 15 and taken them to their terrorist camps to indoctrina­te them with their ideology and train them for armed combat, which they are thrust into when they turn 16.

The terror group prevents children from seeing their families, torturing and imprisonin­g those who insist on doing so. Several members of the YPG/PKK who surrendere­d to security forces earlier this year confirmed these reports, confessing to judicial authoritie­s that children had been forcibly recruited.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2020 Traffickin­g in Persons Report, the terror group recruits and forcibly abducts children for conscripti­on.

The YPG in northwest Syria “continued to recruit, train, and use boys and girls as young as 12 years old; since 2017,” the report said, adding that internatio­nal observers have reported that YPG kidnapped, at times by force, children from displaceme­nt camps in northeast Syria.

The U.N. Human Rights Council published new findings in a report on Jan. 16 that YPG/PKK terrorists were using child soldiers in Syria.

Virginia Gamba, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representa­tive on children in armed conflicts, met with a YPG/PKK terrorist in June 2019 in Geneva and signed a deal to end the recruitmen­t of child soldiers, a move that provides more proof of the terror group’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

No other U.N. publicatio­ns since then have reported compliance with this deal nor an end to the practice.

Locals in terrorist-controlled areas have long suffered from YPG/PKK atrocities – including kidnapping­s, recruitmen­t of child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displaceme­nt. Although many northern Syrian areas have been cleared of the terrorists through Turkish military operations, the YPG/PKK continues to disrupt the peace by infiltrati­ng liberated territorie­s.

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