A Syrian mother longs for the day when she is reunited with her son, who was abducted by the PKK/YPG terror group years ago.

Ibrahim Halil was kidnapped from Syria's Tell Abyad when he was just 13 while he watched a football match with his friends on a synthetic grass pitch in 2018.

The district was then under the occupation of the PKK/YPG terror organization, the mother, Nur el-Isa, told Anadolu Agency (AA).

Although Ibrahim's family searched for him in several areas occupied by the group, the terrorists denied the kidnapping, she said.

When the family went to question those who witnessed the abduction, the PKK/YPG then admitted that Ibrahim was with them.

She lamented that she had not heard from her beloved Ibrahim since July 2018.

The grieving mother is trying to keep up the hope of being reunited with Ibrahim by looking at the clothes and school notebooks left behind by her son.

No reprieve

El-Isa said she had not forgotten Ibrahim for a moment since he was kidnapped.

"He left home in the morning and did not arrive until the evening. I searched his bed all night, but he wasn't there," she said. "The next morning, when I asked the people at the football pitch, they said that 'the organization took my son by car.'"

She said the group initially denied kidnapping her Ibrahim but later admitted he had supposedly received "military training."

El-Isa said the family went to the Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir el-Zour provinces in hopes of finding Ibrahim.

"There is no place left that we are not looking for," she said. "They said he would return when the 40-day training was over, but he still hasn't returned. I haven't had any rest since he was taken away."

El-Isa, who counted Ibrahim's favorite things and burst into tears, said: "We cry as a family when we remember him."

"He loved stuffed and raw meatballs very much. I make my meals with my tears. They took him away from me when he was 13."

She asked the international community for help in finding Ibrahim.

"Revolutionary Youth affiliated with the organization took my son," she said. "There are witnesses that the organization took him. I want my son back."

She then called out to Ibrahim.

"I want to hear your voice," she said. "He would have the flu during the winter. There would be blood dripping from his nose. I wonder if he's going through this."

"I don't know what he's doing right now. Did they take him to the mountains? Where did they take him?" she said.

El-Isa said Ibrahim was a sixth grader when he was kidnapped.

"I still keep his clothes and notebooks. Look how beautiful the handwriting is," she said.

"He loved school. His teachers also loved him very much. I dreamed of him becoming a teacher or a doctor.

"They deprived my son of an education. They took it away from me. They burned my heart," she said.

YPG abductions

The territory of Deir el-Zour east of the Euphrates River is under the control of the U.S.-backed YPG, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist group.

The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union – is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye during an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror.

After losing significant territory and countless terrorists, the group ceded to its stronghold in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq near the Turkish border while its Syrian branch took advantage of a power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war since 2011 and invaded several resource-rich provinces with the help of Washington.

The terrorists forced many locals to migrate, bringing their militants to change the regional demographic, seizing regional oil wells – Syria’s largest – to smuggle oil and generate revenue for its activities.

The terrorists have been forcibly recruiting the children of local tribal communities.

According to a U.N. report, the YPG recruited more than 1,200 children in 2022 to use as soldiers. There were over 2,438 grave violations against 2,407 children in Syria. As many as 1,696 children in Syria were recruited and used mostly by PKK/YPG and other armed groups and non-state actors.

International law prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting anyone under 18, and enlisting children under 15 is considered a war crime.

Though the PKK/YPG initially signed a pledge with Geneva Call – a Swiss humanitarian organization that works to "protect civilians in armed conflict" – to stop the use of child soldiers in 2014, its use of child soldiers has only increased since then.