‘Someone Listen’: Fear and longing in the Syrian detention camp al-Hol | ISIL/ISIS News

Many detainees at the camp decided to stay at home that dusty day, but Asma decided to vent the elements and use a less full of market.

With four children close to her, she scanned an insidious choice of vegetables on a small booth, measuring which dishes can collect with limited capabilities on sale.

Asmino’s oldest child, early nine-year-old girl with a red head and pink Tracksuit ribbon, covered the youngest child, a cherubic one-year-old girl, full of jacket.

She adjusted the hood of her sister’s jacket, who slipped down, causing the little ones to jerk as her dust was spinning around her face.

She pulled her little sister toward her chest, drawing warm nods from her mother.

Asma spends most of her days with her children because she does not feel that educational facilities at the camp meet their needs.

As she spoke, her two sons broke out a spontaneous game.

Her expression issued a deep melancholy. “It’s hard to raise children here,” she admitted, her gaze lowered.

The monotony of everyday life in the camp, she explained, can often lead to children struggling and can be difficult for her to control her boys.

On top of that, in her seven years at the camp, Asma saw that prices are increasing to such an extent that it is difficult to buy enough food now to feed their growing children.

Non-governmental organizations distribute daily food meals in al-Hol, but many detainees supplement these finished meals and basic ingredients with fresh market products, using money sent to relatives or earned from jobs in medical and educational institutions of the camp operated by non-governmental organizations.

The ASMA family experienced through the ugliest period of the camp, which saw more than 100 killings from 2020 to 2022 and left a deep psychological impact on children at the camp, which make up more than half of their population.

2021, according to the children of Save the Children, two inhabitants were killed each week, making a camp, per capita, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child.

It is the period that Abed, the Iraqi Turkmen welder from Mosul, who preferred only one name, kept his four children in his tent at all times.

When Al Jazeera met 39-year-old Abed, he worked under the shelter of family service shops on a side street outside the market. The store, along with pieces of wood and plastic sheet metal, services all the machines that need fixes for detainees camps.

He led his adult son, who in the early 20ths, methodically through a complex welding process, the two laughed at each other as they shared a private joke, and the winding wind brought his words out of the ear.

Abed picked up a welding torch while his son held a piece of metal in place with a couple of gardens.

He taught his children to his store, but it is, he said, only so they can “survive day by day,” adding that it will not give them tools to enjoy a full and fulfilling life.

“The future of my children is gone,” Abed said with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “They missed too many schools.”

Several organizations for help run educational institutions, but it is well known that they were suspected of being attacked by Isil agents, so Abed thinks it is safer to hold their children until they can go home.

“We had a good life in Mosul. My kids went to school and everything was fine, but now he took a deep breath,” it’s been too much time. “

“It’s hard to swallow as a parent because school is all.”