‘A boy sexually assaulted my son last year. It happened outside during the day. He was approximately 12 years old. My son pointed him [out] to me,’ the mother said. 52. In addition, children are at risk of sexual violence and exploitation. One European mother of a three-year-old boy living in the al Hol Annex spoke to RSI about her son’s assault. ‘A boy sexually assaulted my son last year. It happened outside during the day. He was approximately 12 years old. My son pointed him [out] to me,’ the mother said. ‘Children are afraid and jump with surprise when they hear a loud noise or a plane,’ a French detainee said. RSI has learned that children are displaying clear signs of severe psychological distress such as epilepsy, bed-wetting, nightmares, and disordered sleep. 53. As for mental health, a very large number of children detained in the camps suffer from a degree of trauma or post-traumatic stress as a result of events they have witnessed. One British mother in the al Hol camp explained that her three-year-old son frequently recounts the day she was injured in a bombing. ‘Children are afraid and jump with surprise when they hear a loud noise or a plane,’ a French detainee said. RSI has learned that children are displaying clear signs of severe psychological distress such as epilepsy, bed-wetting, nightmares, and disordered sleep. One European woman described the behaviour of a threeyear-old whose mother had died: ‘He doesn’t make eye contact. He sits in a corner with his back towards us. In the night I sometimes wake up and he is awake, sitting and biting his hands and knuckles until bleeding. He beats and bites himself. He wakes up at night screaming. He takes faeces from his diaper – he still uses a diaper at three and a half years old – and puts it on the walls.’ 54. There is no dedicated mental health infrastructure for children in the camps, and little room for doubt that prolonged detention in these conditions without appropriate treatment worsens the serious psychological conditions suffered by many child detainees. 55. Orphans are in a particular position of vulnerability in the camps. A significant number of orphans and otherwise unaccompanied children live in the camps, comprising a variety of nationalities and ages (from new-borns to teenagers). RSI has been unable to obtain a comprehensive list or breakdown of nationality because numbers change very quickly and because there is no systematic effort to trace unaccompanied children in the camps. By July 2019, UNICEF had identified at least 520 unaccompanied or separated children in al Hol camp.45 It is not uncommon for women in the camps to be looking after children who are not their own and with whom they have no formal familial relationship. RSI met a European mother who had two of her own children, and was also caring for two other European children - a three-year-old and a baby. Those were the children of a friend who had died in Al Baghuz Fawqani. The children’s father is in prison in Syria. 23 RIGHTS & SECURITY INTERNATIONAL