UNICEF: an obscure future awaits thousands of children taking shelter in Al-Hol camp in Syria.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced that thousands of children in Al-Hol camp and other parts of Syria are facing an obscure future, and called for improving humanitarian access and providing protection for the children, including reintegration into local communities and safe return to their home.

The UNICEF reported: “Over 70 thousand people take shelter in Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria”

The UNICEF estimates that at least 90% of those are women and children. Nearly 20 thousand of them are from Syria, and the rest approximately 29 thousand, come from 62 other countries with 9 thousand from Iraq.

It added: “The majority of the children in the camp are under the age of 12, and these are the most fragile as they have experienced intense violence and seen violations that are hard to imagine.”

About the challenging humanitarian conditions it said: “Children in Al-Hol camp are facing a very difficult humanitarian situation, and the suffering is growing for many due to their negative experiences of being used or forced to fight and perform extremely violent acts”

The UNICEF added in its report: “Those children are part of a large group of children, which have alleged connections with the armed conflict, and many of them are currently in camps, detention centres or orphanages around Syria, specifically in the north-eastern part of the country. Some reports say that there are children under 12 years old being kept as detainees, and that they are being exposed to a great risk as violence intensifies. In the province of Idlib, northwest of Syria, there are nearly a million children stuck in intense fighting, with their fate and their future hanging in the air.”

The organisation confirmed that children in Al-Hol camp need care and protection, and that they rely on immediate humanitarian assistance especially as summer temperatures soar.

"Thousands of boys and girls in Al-Hol have never had a chance to simply be children," said UNICEF Representative in Syria Fran Equiza after a visit to Al-Hol camp last week. "These are children. They deserve the utmost care, protection, attention and services. After years of violence, they are unwanted, stigmatised by their local communities or shunned by their governments."

Equiza added: “We are working with partners and donors to provide children in Al-Hol with life-saving assistance. This is a drop in the ocean, much more needs to be done to continue providing children with basic services and protection including reintegration into their local communities and safe return to their home countries."

UNICEF is calling on all parties involved: “These are children and not criminals. They have the right to be safeguarded, including legal documentation and family reunification. And the UNICEF appeals on taking actual steps.”

UNICEF is calling on all member states involved to act in the best interests of the child, comply with the international law standards and to take full responsibility for the reintegration of children into their local communities and the safe repatriation of children back to their countries. It is also calling on all parties to the conflict in Syria and those who have influence over them to facilitate unconditional humanitarian access to and inside Al-Hol and everywhere in Syria to reach every child in need, wherever they are.

The UNICEF also announced that it is responding to the needs in Al-Hol camp along with partners. Over the past months, at least 520 unaccompanied or separated children have been identified, 214 have been reunited with family members and another 74 children are being hosted in interim care sites.

UNICEF is also supporting learning spaces at the camp serving 3,000 children, in addition to child-friendly spaces and mobile child safeguarding teams reaching nearly 12,000 children with recreational activities, counseling, case management and special care for separated and unaccompanied children.

Since the beginning of the year, the mobile health and nutrition teams, supported by the UNICEF and the World Health Organization, are providing vaccination and nutrition services to children in the camp through fixed and mobile facilities.

On a daily basis, UNICEF and partners are providing nearly 1.7 million liters of safe drinking water and 750,000 liter of water for domestic use. Water consumption rises during the summer, so securing sufficient water quantities to cover the increase in demand will continue to pose a challenge.

To continue providing assistance and support to children and families in the camp and to scale up operations to meet their needs, UNICEF is appealing for US $9 million.