An overview of ISIL's recent attack on Hasakah

 Six days ago, ISIL launched an effort to free about 3,500 of its fighters in one of the largest prisons in the Ghoyran region. ISIL fighters attacked the prison in one of the heaviest attacks since the fall of the ISIL caliphate in late 2019.

Attempts to escape from prison and its clashes left more than 180 dead. The United Nations estimates that 45,000 people have been displaced as a result of ISIL attacks.
After nearly a week of fighting with ISIL fighters, Kurdish-led residents and military personnel celebrated victory in the northeastern Syrian province of Hasakah on Wednesday.

Following ISIL's deadly escape from prison in northeastern Syria, human rights groups warn that detained children must be returned to their country.

Clashes around the prison also drew the attention of international organizations to the hundreds of children detained in the prison.

They are the children of ISIL fighters, some of whom have been recruited as child soldiers. SDF forces call them "caliph puppies". They come from all over the world, but they have been released from prison for more than two years because their governments have not been able to bring them back to the country.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) says about 700 children are being held in the prison, while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) puts the number at 850.

For nearly a week, children incarcerated in a prison full of ISIL fighters, deprived of food, water and security, were trapped in a fierce battle with heavy gunfire and airstrikes in and around the prison.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), children in prison experienced days of deprivation, and some were killed and wounded in the war.

The Syrian Democratic Forces have not yet provided statistics on the number of children injured or killed in the operation, and it is not clear where they are at the moment.
Since the fall of ISIL in 2013, tens of thousands of women and children from dozens of countries have been held in high-security refugee camps, while older teenage boys and men have been imprisoned.

On the other hand, officials of the Syrian Democratic Forces and some analysts said that the densely populated camps have become a hub for ISIL recruitment. Murder and other violent crimes are common, and some reports say young boys and men have been trafficked out of the camp to join the group's fighters.

The Al-Hul and Al-Ruj detention camps in northeastern Syria host 60,000 people, 40,000 of whom are children. 7800 of them come from 60 countries. The rest are from Syria and Iraq. These camps are run by SDF forces, who have difficulty doing this alone due to limited capacity. Relief workers from international humanitarian organizations are working to improve their living conditions.

When the captive children reach adolescence, local authorities transfer them to adult prisons alongside suspected ISIL fighters. The United Nations has said they are at risk of abuse, and many have been arrested without any clear evidence of a crime. According to the UN Special Rapporteur: "Most of the children in the camps are under the age of seven, they have not committed any crime, they are victims who are being used by various armed groups."

_{Source and Credit: UNICEF, BBC, AL JAZEERA}