Thousands of children separated from families due to fight against IS: UN

Some of the children lost their parents in explosions or while fleeing IS during the ongoing operations in Mosul. Others managed to flee without their families from IS-controlled areas.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Over 1,000 children under the age of 18 have been separated from their parents as they fled the Islamic State (IS), according to the UN’s children agency, UNICEF.

“There are just over 1,000 children who are separated and unaccompanied,” UNICEF’s Maulid Warfa said while speaking with AFP.

“Separated means they are with relatives, but not their parents. Unaccompanied means they are all alone, and this group is our top priority,” he said.

Warfa added if the organization failed to find the families, the minors were handed off to local courts that will place them in “state institutions.”

Some of the children lost their parents in explosions or while fleeing IS during the ongoing operations in Mosul.

Others managed to flee without their families from IS-controlled areas.

Adel, 15, who now lives in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Debaga, left Hawija on foot last year, one of the last remaining IS strongholds in the Kirkuk Province.

He and others made their way to the Kurdistan Region.

“We walked all night, around 14 hours,” he said. While his parents are still alive, they are now in an IDP camp in the Kirkuk Province.

The battle to liberate Mosul has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, even those who didn’t reside in Iraq’s second largest city as militants fled to other IS-controlled areas.

Terre des Hommes official Abdulwahed Abdullah said children and teenagers separated from their families were at risk of psychological scarring.

“They are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and most of them have trouble sleeping due to anxiety,” he said.

Some of the youths also “feel guilty they were able to escape from [IS] but not their families,” Abdullah noted.

The children are allowed some freedoms, such as mingling between boys and girls and listening to music, all of which were forbidden under the extremist organization’s rule.

However, many are still waiting to find out about their parents’ fate.

 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany