MESOP WATCH NEWS : Family Desperate to Find 15-Year-Old Girl Recruited by PKK in Rojava

Basnews English 2021/08/08 – ERBIL — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) recently recruited a 15-year-old girl in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) which has left her family desperate to find and save their daughter from being used as a child soldier.

A local source from Tay neighborhood of Qamishlo, north of Hassakah province, told BasNews on Sunday that the young girl had gone missing 10 days ago, and the family soon suspected the PKK.

“On Saturday, 7 August, they found out that their daughter was recruited by a PKK-affiliated organization named Jwanen Shorishger [Revolutionary Youth],” the source said.

“The young girl is from an Arab family, and the Revolutionary Youth [Organization] has refused to return her to the family,” he added.

The organization is accused of luring underage youth into military activities of the PKK in Qandil, Sinjar, and other areas where the armed group is in clashes with the Turkish Army. The organization, however, depicts itself as a cultural and civil society center on the outside.

BasNews reported on Saturday that the PKK had set up a new military camp in Derik area to the west of Qamishlo where it trains the underage recruits before deploying them to the frontlines of its war around the region.

Local sources claim that the PKK runs other military camps for training new recruits in different areas of the Syrian Kurdistan, including Amuda, Tel Rafaat, Sheikh Maqsoud, and Kobani.

In July 2019, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) adopted a UN Security Council Resolution-mandated action plan to end the use and recruitment of children for military training within their ranks. Follow-up reports said the group had adhered to the agreement but the PKK was still recruiting children.

The SDF is officially in charge of the Syrian Kurdish territories, but it is closely linked with the PKK as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), one of the PKK’s offshoots in Syria, makes the backbone of the SDF.

“These children should be in school and receiving proper education instead of military and ideological trainings,” Ruhat Mohammed, a political activist and journalist, told BasNews. “The PKK and its affiliated organizations have so far kidnapped thousands of children, boys and girls, and trained them in their camps in Qandil, Sinjar, and other areas. Hundreds of them were killed in combats.”

He added that some of the children recruited by the PKK are used during demonstrations to promote the party’s political agenda, a strategy often followed by the Syrian regime.