UN expert decries the practice of taking boys from their mothers at detention camps in Syria

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — A U.N.-backed human rights advocate says hundreds of boys held in detention camps run by U.S.-backed forces in opposition-controlled northeastern Syria have been wrongly separated from their mothers on the “unproven” belief that they pose a security risk. Fionnuala Ni Aolain aired concerns Friday about lingering “mass arbitrary detention” in the infamous al-Hol camp and others like it that she saw during her trip to the region this week. She echoed the calls of human rights advocates for foreign countries — in Europe, north Africa and beyond — to repatriate their nationals from the camps, especially children who were not involved in fighting in Syria’s civil war.