Al-Hawl children call for help. A few months ago, during A2's visit to Al-Hawl camp in Syria, the 10-year-old Albanian from Gostivar, Osama Fidani, although imprisoned, did not lose the smile of a child.
Today, his voice has changed and the only words he conveys via a voice message to A2 are those for help. A few days ago, in completely unclear circumstances, his 13-year-old brother was taken by the Kurdish soldiers and from that moment nothing is known about him: “It has been two months that my brother is not with us. They took us to do the registration and we thought they would take us back to our homes. But they lied to us. They took all the boys, my brother was there too. We do not know where he is now. We are upset that the state is not taking us.
"We are children and we want to go home!"
The same situation is being experienced by other children inside the camp who in a weak voice are asking for help, asking to return home.
For several days now, the Albanians in the Al-Hawl camp have been desperately demanding that something be done by law enforcement agencies. Requests for help continue to arrive in the A2 editorial office through letters and voice messages. Their families in Albania have sent the same letters to the Albanian authorities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, as well as the Prime Minister himself, but so far they have not received any response, despite their insistence for several months.
In November 2019, the journalist Jul Kasapi met with Albanians in that camp. Referring to a register kept by the women of that camp, there are about 80 Albanians from Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. More than half of them are children.