Bas News quoted from a member in Afrin local council, Azad Othman "50,000 civilians are stuffed in 4 camps in Aleppo countryside and PYD prevents them from returning to Afrin and taking them as hostages or human shields in these camps, as they aim to use them later to negotiate with Turkey in the future"
Othman considered that "stuffing around 50,000 civilians in 4 camps is a crime as they live in crucial circumstances in these camps, those people own olive lands, shops and houses in Afrin" assuring that "the one who own sustenance feels now that he is disabled and living on some food supplies".
Othman cleared that "One of the people survived from these camps and reached Afrin, torture was seen on his body because he attempted to convince people to return to their homes".
"There are unconfirmed reports that PYD planting land mines around one of the camps' fences to prevent people from returning of Afrin" he added.
The displaced people from the Afrin region, who had previously confirmed to Bas News, said that "some 50,000 people have fled the PYD camps in Aleppo countryside until now, because of the absence of the most basic resistance to life on the one hand, and the recruitment of PYD forces, including minors, , As well as to prevent the return of these displaced persons to their homes".
Human Rights Watch said on Friday that People’s Protection Units YPG militant group has been recruiting children, including girls, and using some in hostilities despite pledges to stop the practice.
Recent data from the United Nations showed a disturbingly high increase in child recruitment by the YPG last year. The armed group should immediately demobilize children in its ranks and stop recruiting children, including from families in displacement camps under their control. International law prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting anyone under 18, and enlisting children under 15 is a war crime.
“The YPG, despite pledges to stop using child soldiers, is still recruiting children for military training in territory it controls,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, acting emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s especially horrendous that the group is recruiting children from the vulnerable families in displacement camps without their parents’ knowledge or even telling them where their children are.” The United States government, which supports the Syrian Democratic Forces, should urge the group to end its use of child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said.
The annual UN report on children in armed conflict found 224 cases of child recruitment by the YPG and its women’s unit in 2017, an almost fivefold increase from the previous year. Seventy-two of the children, nearly one-third, were girls. In at least three cases, the group abducted children to enlist them.
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