UN Urges Int'l Community To Solve Problem Of Stateless Children In Syria's Al-Hawl Camp

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published April 19, 2019 | 12:10 AM

A senior UN official called on Thursday on countries to take responsibility for approximately 2,500 stateless children of foreign fighters of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) who are stranded in the infamous Al-Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria

GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2019) A senior UN official called on Thursday on countries to take responsibility for approximately 2,500 stateless children of foreign fighters of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) who are stranded in the infamous Al-Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund there are around 2,500 children of foreign nationals at the Al-Hawl refugee camp.

"These children do have a father and a mother, [who] have a nationality, and therefore a solution has to be found," Panos Moumtzis, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, said at a briefing in Geneva.

Moumtzis said that states had a legal responsibility, especially for children, many of whom were born in IS camps, and that children should be treated as victims of the crisis irrespective of their family affiliation.

"All member states have to do every measure possible to ensure the protection, the prosecution, the repatriation, the rehabilitation and reintegration of these women and children in compliance with their obligations under international law," Moumtzis said.

The Al-Hawl refugee camp, according to the UN coordinator, currently houses about 75,000 people, 90 percent of whom are women and children. The camp is severely over-populated and under-resourced.

Following the brutal civil war in Syria, during which IS attracted thousands of foreign fighters to join its ranks, the government has been struggling to cope with thousands of people left in the aftermath of the war, who were affiliated with the terror group. Foreign governments have been reluctant to repatriate their nationals, fearing that they will bring extremist ideology back with them.