On January 8th, 2022, the Turkish shelling on Kobani’s countryside, northern Syria, injured 3 children and 3 women, including the child Abdo Mustafa Hanifi, whose right leg was amputated.
How is he now after more than two years of this injury? Are there any ways for remedy and reparation?
indiscriminate targeting
The family of Mustafa Hanifi, a 40-year-old farmer, was at home in ‘Qara Mough’ village in Kobani’s countryside when Turkish missiles fell near them, causing the injury of six members of the family.
Among those who were rescued by the father Mustafa and his relatives was Abdo’s baby brother, who was only a few days old, while the six injured were taken to hospitals.
The missile caused the amputation of Abdo’s right leg, who was then only four years old, and some injuries in his head.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense wrote on its X platform then that it had targeted military sites in response to the killing of three Turkish soldiers in an IED explosion near Tal Abyad on the Syrian-Turkish border. However, survivors and their families’ testimonies indicated that a residential area was targeted.
Even though Turkey signed two ceasefire agreements with both the U.S. and Russia after carrying out a military operation dubbed Peace Spring in October 2019, it continued to carry out attacks using artillery shelling, drones, and warplanes.
According to testimonies, Turkey used drones and artillery missiles that day.
There are government forces’ checkpoints in the vicinity of the village, but Turkish missiles and drones targeted civilians’ homes in the populated village.
Turkey has not demonstrated its compliance with the International Humanitarian Law, human rights treaties and laws that protect civilians during times of conflict, whether in this incident or similar ones. This is prohibited as it threatens the lives of civilians and violates basic human rights.
Abdo’s case is one of many children victims of the Turkish shelling before and after his injury. A previous report by our team entitled “Turkey targets civilians’ houses, workplaces in NE Syria” showed that Turkish forces expands their target area year after another, threatening the lives of civilians in the Autonomous Administration-held areas in north and east Syria, even on their daily basis activities in their homes or workplaces.
Mustafa Hanifi, Abdo’s father, said that approximately ten missiles fell that day on the village’s houses and near them.
Local activists responded to the Turkish allegations by launching an advocacy campaign on social media of sharing the hashtag titled: ‘I am not terrorist…I want my leg’.
Expensive treatment
Abdo Hanifi was four years old when he was injured, this year he is six, which is the age to go to elementary school in Syria.
In Doctors’ testimonies, they said that the child’s leg was amputated the moment of the injury by the missile, and that when he arrived to the hospital, his leg was only attached to the body by the skin, the medical team resuscitated the child, opened his veins, and performed a complete amputation of the injured leg.
His father said that his son gets panic attacks and screams whenever he hears the sounds of gunfire, missiles, or airplanes. However, Turkey has repeatedly bombs the village in each escalation, and re-targeted the family’s home on August 16th, 2022.
The child needed constant company and care from the family, as he felt sad and afraid whenever he was left alone, or when he was unable to keep up with other children jumping and running around.
Social Affairs and Labor Committee of the AANES pledged to provide the necessary treatment supplies for the child Hanifi.
The official website of the Autonomous Administration published in May 2022, pictures that said to be of the process of fitting a prosthesis for Abdo Hanifi in Raqqa after undergoing physiotherapy sessions, but the same website said that the child’s adaptation to his new leg would be monitored.
However, his condition requires rehabilitation and treatment to fit and replace a prosthesis every year and a half, as he will use a permanent prosthetic leg at the age of eighteen, according to a statement by the Social Affairs and Labor Committee.
The family cannot afford the costs of fitting and replacing prostheses for their child for all these years.
On October 1st, 2023, through Rudaw media network Mustafa Hanifi called the humanitarian organizations to help provide a prosthetic leg for his son so that he can run and play with his peers.
International humanitarian law stipulates the principle of distinction between civilians and militaries in military operations, but civilians have suffered losses of life and property since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, with the absence of programs to redress violations committed by more than one party, and the difficulty of conducting an urgent international investigation due to poor security conditions, which hinders the means of redress.
According to the Belfast Guiding Principles issued by the United Nations in 2005 regarding redress, victims and their families have the right to compensation in various forms such as rehabilitation, guarantees of non-repetition, and atonement.
‘Insight’ Organization monitored the killing of five children and the injury of 10 children in Syria during the first five months of 2024 by aerial and artillery shelling of Turkey, Israel, Iran, Jordan and Russia.
