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Syrian Children Tell of Torture

Posted: 29/09/2012 00:00

Khalid looks younger than his 15 years. I'm sat opposite him in a tent in Za'atari camp. The sun is beating down on the tent and there are beads of sweat on all our faces. He's too far into his story to notice.

"I was arrested - here, you see these marks?" Khalid presents his thin wrists to me and turns them over. Scars snake around them in white circles.

"My hands were tied with plastic ties. They were tied so tight. Other children were with me in the cell - they had the same ties. We would beg them to untie us, and they would only tie them tighter."

Khalid was held prisoner - in his old school.

"It is ironic, that they took me there to torture me, in the same place I used to go to school to learn. My father was actually the Principal there. They had taken over the school and made it into a torture centre. It wasn't a proper jail, I learnt later. It was a place they took you to first, before jail. To torture you. When I realised that was where we were going, I was so sad, I wanted to cry."

I pause the interview and ask gently if he wants to continue. He nods his head emphatically and continues before I can ask another question.

"I was terrified. There were 35 people taken in with me, and overall around 135 in the same room in the school as me. I remember one boy was only 12 years old. He was in prison for five days with me. His hands were bound behind him, just as mine were.

Khalid pauses and looks in my eyes. "What can he have done? He is a 12-year-old boy." I didn't have an answer. I don't know if anyone could answer that.

"After those first two days I was taken from the room to be interrogated. I had not eaten anything, had no water, and was extremely weak. I was hung up - from the ceiling with rope.

They hung me up by my wrists, by the plastic ties. My feet were above the floor. I was beaten."

Khalid continues and tells me that those who held him prisoner also took turns to stub out their cigarettes on him. He shows me the scars covering his arm and chest. We talk for ages after, about his hopes for the future, what he wants to do next. He makes some jokes about football, and we all laugh. But leaving that tent, I can't forget the image of this smart and funny 15-year-old boy begging to have his wrists untied.

 
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Khalid looks younger than his 15 years. I'm sat opposite him in a tent in Za'atari camp. The sun is beating down on the tent and there are beads of sweat on all our faces. He's too far into his story ...
Khalid looks younger than his 15 years. I'm sat opposite him in a tent in Za'atari camp. The sun is beating down on the tent and there are beads of sweat on all our faces. He's too far into his story ...
 
 
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19:49 on 30/09/2012
Why were they being tortured? For information? As a show of power? By who? The article leaves many questions unanswered. Saying that, no matter what your politics may be, is there ever an excuse for this horrific treatment of children? What kind of person could actually do that?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
yaskan
The Independent
13:25 on 30/09/2012
Thank you Miss Carter for your work with the Syrians,they are victims of Assad mafia,who want to cling to power,since they have been in power for more than 40 years,using Oppression,Brutality,Violence,and they continue to oppress the Syrians by TORTURING their children.
Shame on anybody who defends this Assad EVIL.
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OzzieTonto
“Hatred, the only thing that lasts.”
12:28 on 29/09/2012
Who? Who did this? Are we not to be told? Are we supposed to assume the usual: that the evil Assad regime tortures its own children? that's what the usual line is.
But who did this? what's wrong with this story? Didn't Cat even ask the boy? didn't he know?
Or is the answer the one I've learned to expect: that the foreign jihadis in the free Syrian Army did this, the Sunni extremist, Salafist, al-Qaeda-linked ones sent by NATO, the UK, the US, who we know have been smuggled in from Libya, Morocco, Afghanistan, who-knows-where.
But this bright spark from Save The Children isn't going to tell us that.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
yintwin
03:09 on 29/09/2012
It's easy to be dismissive of these reports that happen 'far away' and to 'people we don't know'. I also watched the news the other day where there were reports of women in Syria being taken hostage and tortured for weeks, by soldiers. Sexual torture.
But again, its not in my suburb, right.
The Jill Meagher case is big news in Melbourne right now. A woman walking home at 2am disappears. Within a week, they discover she has been raped and murdered all through use of CCTV footage from storefronts. They have the culprit, who confessed. Everyone here feels for Jill, for her family, her husband. Because 'it could have been me'. Or 'it could have been my friend/wife/sister'.
I worry for the world. We're products of our genetics and our society, and our society here is comprised or reality tv, violent games, winning or losing, adds telling us what is 'cool' so that someone can make a huge profit. None of these things add toward a loving caring mutually responsible environment. No matter what sort of parent you are, your child will not avoid this world that surrounds us. Isn't it time we recognized the destruction we are allowing into our lives, and made a change!
Check out this site if you recognize there is something about current society that is leading us all on a downward rapid slide
http://www.mutualresponsibility.org/