Protests in northern Syria over Kurdish militia child kidnapping 

Protests have taken place in the city of Manbij, northern Syria, over the kidnapping of a 14-year-old child by the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), Anadolu Agency reported.

The agency quoted local sources, who asked not to be named, that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) kidnapped Faisal Al-Jamil from Manbij. The sources explained that the child’s parents and civilians in the city protested the child’s kidnapping and demanded that the militias return him to his family.

Multiple reports have accused the YPG of forcibly recruiting children to fight alongside its forces.

In June 2020, the State Department released a report on human trafficking in which it disclosed that the YPG forcibly recruits children from displacement refugee camps in north-eastern Syria. The group has controlled Manbij since 2016, where Arabs constitute 99 per cent of the city population.

On 16 January, 2020, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council published data on the recruitment of children by the group. As yet, the UN and other international organisations have not published any reports showing the group has stopped recruiting children.

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