Vincent Hervouet
, modified to
1:48 p.m., January 26, 2022
As everyone knows, mutinies in overcrowded prisons are horrifying. An explosion of cruelty, the settling of scores and hopeless revolt: this often comes down to collective suicide. We remember, twenty years ago, the Taliban and their foreign allies locked up in the fortress of Mazar-I-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. The imprisoned insurgents had killed a CIA investigator before being cut to pieces by the American air force. We are talking about 500 dead. From the start, the Americans waged a dirty war. And besides, they lost her.
In the suburbs of Al Hassaké, in the northeast of Syria, the second round is underway. For six days, jihadists have held part of the Al-Sinna prison where they were locked up. Before the mutiny, they were 3,500. When it broke, some took the opportunity to escape. Outside, a hundred Islamic State fighters attacked the prison with truck bombs, bombs and heavy weapons.
The Kurdish guards were overwhelmed, but soon reinforcements arrived. And the helicopters of the international coalition too. The neighborhood is cordoned off. The curfew is total. Fighting rages in and around. Tens of thousands of Hassaké residents fled.
A hell where we speak French
Us, it did not prevent us from sleeping that night. It doesn’t thrill us. And yet, Al-Sinna is one of the names of hell and French is spoken there. Among the 850 teenagers, some of whom are as young as 12, there are French people trapped in the fighting.
They have been locked in a dormitory for six days. We imagine under what conditions. They serve as human shields. It is the Kurds who say so. Unicef is concerned that they may be injured or forcibly recruited. The attack choppers flying over the prison and the terrorists manning it may indeed be cause for concern. To tell the truth, we are not far from the crime against humanity.
Minors should not be left to their fate
Al-Sinna was never a summer camp. Formerly, it was a school with a boarding school. For 3 years, a rehabilitation center for minors. In other words, a recovery center. Unicef better be concerned that 12-year-olds have been locked up with the dregs of humanity and held without trial for years. Incidentally, it would be time to wonder in what state they will come out, if they survive the carnage.
France’s line is that the jihadists must be judged where they committed their crimes and therefore there is no question of repatriating them. To leave minors in this furnace is to deny the values for which we fight against terrorists, in particular the innocence of children who are not cannon fodder.
And we must not imagine that there is on one side idealism, great principles and on the other, realism and cold calculation. Kurdistan is a country that does not exist. Like Guantanamo, a kind of dismissal, where the principles of law no longer apply. It is comfortable for the European leaders who want to discard insoluble problems and for the peoples who refuse to look reality in the face. But this offshore prison is not safe. Daesh has revived there. It’s a death trap. Kurdistan is making monsters. A human bomb factory.