Andrej Mahecic of UNHCR said in Geneva that malnourishment and hypothermia have been the principal causes of the 29 children’s deaths BEIRUT: Nearly 30 children have died in recent weeks after making their way out of the last area controlled by the Daesh group in eastern Syria, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency said Friday. Andrej Mahecic of UNHCR said in Geneva that malnourishment and hypothermia have been the principal causes of the 29 children’s deaths. The US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have captured wide areas from Daesh in recent months in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The extremists are now besieged in a small pocket near Iraq’s border. The fighting that began with an SDF offensive on Sept. 10 has left hundreds of fighters dead on both sides. The extremists have been losing ground since then and now they control only two villages. As Daesh loses ground, thousands of people, many of them women and children, are fleeing and most of them are being taken to a tent settlement in the northeastern province of Hassakeh. Mahecic said some 10,000 people have fled the area near the Iraqi border and reached the Al-Hol tent settlement in Hassakeh, raising its population to more than 23,000. Mahecic said UNHCR and humanitarian partners are racing to meet the urgent needs of vulnerable civilians at Al-Hol. He said families fleeing the IS-held enclave and surrounding areas have also told UNHCR “of a harrowing journey to safety.” “They travel at night with barely any belongings, often having to wade through mine fields and open fighting,” he said. Mahecic added that on reaching SDF positions they describe “being herded into open trucks and having to endure another arduous journey in winter weather northwards to Al-Hol.” “Little or no assistance is provided en-route to the hungry and cold people, the vast majority of whom are women and children,” he said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said many of those in Al-Hol are Iraqi citizens. It added that the dead children include eight Iraqis killed by fire caused by “primitive” methods used for heating.