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Syrian refugee camps: why did five

2021-06-09T22:59:18.480Z


A five-year-old girl died in Syria after being chained up by her father for weeks and starving. The case reveals the dramatic conditions in the refugee camps.


Enlarge image

Nahla al-Othman, five years old, a few months before her death in a refugee camp in northwest Syria

Photo:

Hussein Al Hamad

There is a photo taken a few weeks before her death, on which you can see the girl.

Her tousled chin-length hair, her sweater, which was once pink and is now full of dirt and dust.

The feet in blue rubber boots.

And then the chains.

Iron chains, the ends of which the girl, Nahla al-Othman, five years old, holds in her little hands, almost as a matter of course.

Nahla al-Othman spent three of her five years in a tent with her father and six siblings. The family was expelled from their home town during the Syrian civil war and settled in the small Farjallah refugee camp near the Turkish border. The mother left the family some time ago and fled alone to Turkey.

The father says that Nahla was a child with behavioral problems with an incurable skin disease. And she has always put herself in danger: her hands burned on the fire, thrown from high walls. She just tore off her clothes or ran away, sometimes at night in the neighbors' tents, sometimes out of the camp. He says he wanted to protect her by doing this: chaining his own daughter. Lock her in a cage, in a cot that has been converted into a prison. Neighbors speak of torture.

On May 4, 2021 at 9 p.m., the refugee girl Nahla died in an emergency room in Killi near Idlib.

It says so on the death certificate that SPIEGEL has on hand.

Cause of death: suffocation.

Her father had taken her to the hospital alive.

The autopsy found food particles in the trachea.

The attending pediatrician assumes that Nahla, starved and malnourished, had stuffed food into herself too hastily and swallowed it.

To tell Nahla al-Othman's story means first of all to report on an individual case that shakes the region.

DER SPIEGEL has it

Reconstructed in the last weeks of her life, spoke to treating doctors, father, mother, sister, activists and the camp leader.

The first thing that emerges is the image of an excessively overwhelmed, violent father.

And a girl who did not die from the abuse, but who might have been strong enough to survive without her.

That was born into want and whose illness had no chance of relief in a country devastated by civil war.

But Nahla's story goes beyond that.

1.7 million Syrians are displaced in their own country.

Many of them were bombed out of their homes in the last major offensive by the ruler Bashar al-Assad on the Idlib region in winter 2019/2020.

Since then they have lived in tents, huts, makeshift arrangements, in camps, forests, and open fields in the north of the country.

Hundreds of thousands of children among them.

Desperate parents put newborns next to garbage

For them, everyday life means: hardly any access to education, medical care or a hygienic, safe home.

But the first thing that springs to mind when asked what is wrong with them is food.

This is what aid organizations report on site.

Food prices have risen enormously.

People go hungry.

“We see more and more parents in the Idlib camps who abandon their newborns, put them next to garbage cans and leave.

The parents don't do this because they are cruel people themselves.

They do these cruel things because they see no other way out, ”says Sonia Khush from the aid organization“ Save the Children ”.

Many children in the camps are actively trying to end their lives.

Every fifth registered suicide attempt in northwest Syria is now a child, she says.

15 percent of adolescents have suicidal thoughts.

Anyone who has never experienced anything other than war can hardly imagine hoping for a better time.

Sonia Khush wonders, "How many cases like Nahla's happen every day without anyone ever knowing?"

The fact that the world learned of the life and torments of Nahla al-Othman is due to the video by activist Ahmad Rahhal.

He said on the phone that he visited Farjallah camp in mid-March.

He had heard that a girl was being tied up there by her father.

When he met Nahla, she was not chained, but in her tent.

He pointed his cell phone at Nahla, who looked neglected, and started filming.

The recording, 56 seconds, is available to SPIEGEL.

Nahla asks Rahhal for a sandwich, she holds out her hands to him.

Open wounds on her fingers can be seen.

What kind of injuries to her skin are, asks activist Rahhal, the girl says: "A skin disease."

"Does your father lock you up sometimes?"

"He chains me and hits me."

"Why?"

"Because I run away or run into the neighbors' tent."

Ahmad Rahhal says he sent the video directly to the provincial administration, but they did nothing.

When he found out about Nahla's death, he uploaded part of the video to YouTube.

It has been clicked 1.5 million times so far.

It spread quickly on social media, as did the photo with the iron chains.

Ahmad Rahhal says Nahla's daily suffering was openly visible to everyone in the camp.

Everyone would have known about it.

Why did no one intervene against the father?

Why did no one help Nahla?

Why did she have to die after all?

The head of the camp, Hesham Al Omer, 45 years old, said on the phone that there were 350 families in the Farjallah camp.

It is far from larger cities.

NGOs rarely come to help.

There is too little water for washing and cooking.

He uses the word "nightmare" to describe children's everyday lives.

Many, he says, work instead of going to school.

“No doctor in the area could treat Nahla's skin disease.

I also took her to a doctor once.

She was a restless child, maybe because of the blisters and sores all over her body.

The father should have looked after his daughter around the clock.

He is a single parent and has to work.

He saw no choice but to tie her up. "

Certainly, says Al Omer, everyone would have seen that his father chains Nahla like an animal.

“But if you address a grievance here, then it is you who must resolve it.

You have to pay, then you have the responsibility.

Nobody here can afford to take responsibility. "

The police chief published a statement that said the girl died "under mysterious circumstances."

Witnesses testified that it was tortured by the father.

He neglected the child, let it starve.

However, the autopsy found no traces of abuse.

The father was not to blame for the death, according to the police, the girl had suffocated.

The father. He sounds nervous on the phone, but clear. Essam Abdulkarim Othman, 40 years old, has eight children. He used to work on construction sites in Damascus or in Beirut, Lebanon. He has been unemployed since the war. His eldest son has been missing for years, says Othman, ever since he ran away in the direction of the war front. Nobody knows whether the son is dead. Othman admits he occasionally beats his children, and his wife too, before she left him.

Then he speaks of Nahla.

He says he's not a murderer.

He's crying for his daughter.

After Nahla's death, he was detained for 21 days and then released.

He tells how Nahla repeatedly injured herself and ran away.

One constantly had to be afraid for her.

“Other people said to me, if you are unable to take care of your child, why did you bring them into the world in the first place?” Says Othman.

That's when he started chaining Nahla.

He says, “I have no resources.

I am alone with the kids.

I have to get some food, water.

We don't have any help. ”He was afraid of losing another child after his son.

"Now I've lost it anyway," he says.

He buried his daughter in a grave not far from the camp.

A hospital for 175,000 people from 80 refugee camps

The medical report states that Nahla was resuscitated for half an hour after admission before she died.

She was malnourished.

The hospital says it is almost the only medical point of contact for 175,000 people from 80 refugee camps in the area.

17,600 children have been admitted in the past six months, many with pneumonia, malnutrition and hypothermia.

You couldn't even think of Covid-19.

There are only three pediatricians.

There is a lack of medication, staff, and everything.

Perhaps, says the pediatrician who treated Nahla that evening in early May, he could have saved the girl if he had had better equipment.

And if Nahla's body hadn't already been so weak.

Assistance: Mohannad al-Najjar

This contribution is part of the Global Society project

Expand areaWhat is the Global Society project?

Reporters from

Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe

report under the title “Global Society”

- on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development.

The reports, analyzes, photo series, videos and podcasts appear in the international section of SPIEGEL.

The project is long-term and will be supported for three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.

AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is supporting the project for three years with a total of around 2.3 million euros.

Are the journalistic content independent of the foundation?

Yes.

The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.

Do other media have similar projects?

Yes.

Big European media like "The Guardian" and "El País" have set up similar sections on their news sites with "Global Development" and "Planeta Futuro" with the support of the Gates Foundation.

Have there already been similar projects at SPIEGEL?

In the past few years, SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the “Expedition ÜberMorgen” on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project “The New Arrivals” within the framework several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and flight have been produced.

Where can I find all publications on global society?

The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the topic Global Society.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-06-09

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