Even as fighting is waning in most areas of the war-torn nation, foreign-sponsored militant groups in Syria are enlisting an increasing number of children, according to a UN report.
According to the international organization, the number of children enlisted by extremist groups in Syria has increased steadily over the past three years, from 813 in 2020 to 1,296 in 2021 and 1,696 in 2022.
The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militant organization supported by the US and led by Kurds that battles Damascus, is reportedly one of those organizations that is actively recruiting children. In 2022, the SDF and related groups in northeast Syria were responsible for 637 cases, or more than one-third of all cases.
The report also stated that the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group in northwest Syria and 611 cases of recruitment by Turkish-backed militants from the so-called Free Syrian Army, which has previously engaged in armed conflict with the SDF, respectively.
According to Syrians for Truth and Justice’s executive director, Bassam Alahmad, children are being enlisted all over the country.
He claimed that children may occasionally be enlisted against their will.
In other cases, young people enlist because they or their families depend on the pay. Some people enlist due to ideological motivations or out of kinship or tribal ties. In some instances, Syrian children are sent abroad to serve as mercenaries in other war zones.
The jumble of militant groups present in different regions of Syria has made it difficult to stop such recruitment.
Children are still being recruited in regions under SDF control, according to Nodem Shero, a representative for one of the child protection offices run by the local government in northern Syria.
The so-called Revolutionary Youth, a group affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that Turkey, the United States, and the European Union have designated as a terrorist organization, is one of the local groups that continues to target children.
10 cases were attributed by the UN report to the Revolutionary Youth in 2022, but other sources claim there were more.
According to a report released in January by Syrians for Truth and Justice, Revolutionary Youth was accountable for 45 of the 49 child recruitment cases it discovered in northeastern Syria in 2022.
For thirteen years, in March 2011 precisely, the US and its allies have been funding a campaign of militancy and destruction in Syria.
