UN calls for evacuation of children trapped in besieged Syrian prison

The UN children's agency has called for the evacuation of several hundred child detainees trapped in a Syrian prison seized by Islamic State (IS) militants.

Unicef said it had received "deeply worrisome reports of fatalities" among the boys at Ghwayran prison in Hasaka.

Some detainees have sent audio messages saying they have seen children killed and that there is no food or water.

Kurdish-led fighters, backed by US forces, have retaken most of the prison after six days of fierce clashes.

IS attempted to stage a mass breakout last Thursday, in the jihadist group's biggest operation since its military defeat in Syria in 2019.

Unicef said most of the 850 children, some as young as 12 years old, detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the militia alliance that controls much of north-eastern Syria - were being held at Ghwayran.

Most are Syrian and Iraqi boys, while the rest are nationals of 20 other countries who have refused to repatriate them.

None of the children have been charged with any crime and Unicef said they "should never have been held in military detention in the first place". They had been transferred to Ghwayran after being deemed too old to remain in detention camps for the families of IS militants.

A 17-year-old Australian sent a series of audio messages from the prison earlier this week, in which he said he had suffered a head injury in an US-led coalition air strike and appealed for medical help.

"I'm very scared, there's a lot of people dead in front of me," he said. "I'm scared I might die at any time because of the bleeding. Please help me."

Letta Tayler of Human Rights Watch tweeted that she had been in contact with an 18-year-old American and a Canadian man inside the prison who told her that 15 to 20 boys could have been killed and that they feared they would be shot if they tried to leave.

"We're starving. We're thirsty. There's no food, there's no water, there's no medical supplies at all. We're scared. We just need someone to help us get out of here, to help get us to safety," she quoted the American as saying.

Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore said urged all parties to reach a negotiated solution to end the stand-off.

"A first step should be to open a safe corridor for humanitarians and others to access and evacuate the children in the detention facility, with a view to providing them with the urgent care and protection they need."

The SDF has accused the IS members holed up inside the northern wing of the prison of using the children as "human shields".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least 181 people had been killed in the fighting, including 124 militants and 50 police, SDF fighters and prison guards.

The detention facility housed about 4,000 male inmates, many of them suspected IS members.