ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Local Kurdish security forces in northeast Syria (Rojava) announced late Friday the arrest of those suspected of abducting and brutally murdering a child, following public outrage at the news of her violent death.

Shahd al-Hatam, aged around five, was found dead in a bag near her house in the city of Raqqa on Thursday, three days after she was abducted by unknown armed assailants, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Thursday. News of the child’s death quickly spread across social media.

Local Kurdish security forces, known as Asayish, said in a statement late Friday that their anti-crime forces had arrested the “perpetrators,” adding that “investigations are ongoing into the motives of her killing.”

“The perpetrators were referred to justice [in a court of law],” reads the statement, which added that more information would be released subsequently.

According to the UK-based SOHR, “the kidnappers had asked the girl’s family for a ransom of thousands of US dollars,” but the family could not afford the ransom.

Raqqa is now controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), after being one of the strongholds of the Islamic State (ISIS) between 2014 and 2017.

ISIS sleeper cells are still present in the province, causing insecurity.

SOHR has recorded the "assassinations" of 246 civilians, including 18 children, in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Manbij in recent years.

Syria, including Rojava, has been suffering from an economic crisis for nearly a decade due to internal conflicts and US sanctions.

Rudaw