More than 100 children who had been held in a Syrian prison are missing more than two months after militants attacked it, the UN said on Friday
International rights groups including Save the Children and Human Rights Watch said 700 boys were in the Kurdish-run Ghwayran prison in north-eastern Hassakeh province before it was attacked by ISIS.
The boys, aged 12 to 18, included many who had adult relatives inside the prison and were transferred from nearby displacement camps housing thousands of children of fighters.
“We are extremely concerned that since the January 2022 attack, the fate and whereabouts of at least 100 of those boys remain unaccounted for, which raises serious concerns,” the UN said.
“Some of these cases might amount to enforced disappearance.”
Independent experts called on the authorities to allow humanitarian workers to have full access to children still held at Ghwayran.
“Harm to these children must be identified, and those responsible must be held accountable to prevent impunity,” the UN experts said.
The ISIS prison break attempt from Ghwayran led to a week of clashes inside and around the Kurdish-run jail, leaving hundreds dead, before Kurdish-led forces recaptured the jail.
“Many of the boys detained in the prisons were seriously injured during the jail break and their wounds are not receiving critical medical treatment,” the UN said.
Kurdish authorities say no one escaped but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said several extremists had fled.
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Company Profile
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