Ayyub, seven, wants to be a footballer when he grows up; Mahmud, 11, loves cricket and misses KFC chicken. She abandoned them on the side of the road, where they were picked up by the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces. Since then they have been alone in Camp Roj, the miserable new home of the families of dead or imprisoned militants. Tent fires caused by paraffin cooking stoves are common; one such fire in June killed two small children. Even the relative safety of Camp Roj may be ripped away if the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, follows through on his promise to invade north-east Syria.

Source: The Guardian December 29, 2018 05:00 UTC