Foreign ISIS women living in Syria’s al-Hol camp, where more than 73,000 people are detained, stand in line to receive goods. Residents lived in the former ISIS caliphate and most are children, born to Syrian, Iraqi and foreign parents. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images
The Financial Times, citing sources, reported that more than 20,000 prisoners escaped from the al-Hol camp, which houses supporters and families of ISIS members in northeastern Syria, after the area came under government control.
The Financial Times noted that “over the past month, as Kurdish forces controlling the surrounding areas were ousted by Syrian government security forces, almost all of the camp’s 24,000 prisoners disappeared without a trace.”
It indicated that thousands of prisoners held in the camp managed to escape through gaps in the perimeter fence and have already dispersed throughout the country, with some managing to cross illegally into Iraq and Turkey. The newspaper added that only about 2,000 Iraqi and Syrian nationals remain in the camp.
The Financial Times confirmed that it is unclear who helped the prisoners escape. Some point to government officials, while others suggest assistance from local tribes cooperating with the ISIS terrorist group.
In this context, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria, Celine Schmitt, confirmed that the UNHCR “has observed a significant decrease in the population of al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
Syrian security forces took control of the facility as part of a broader deployment in areas of northern and eastern Syria previously controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This followed an agreement between the two sides stipulating the gradual integration of military forces and administrative structures in al-Hasakah Governorate.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported yesterday that the Syrian government is working to evacuate the remaining residents of al-Hol camp, in preparation for emptying the facility, which was formerly under the control of the SDF. Six buses carrying approximately 400 people left al-Hol camp yesterday, heading to a camp in the Akhtarin area of rural Aleppo in northwestern Syria.
At its peak, the camp housed around 24,000 people, including approximately 15,000 Syrians and some 6,300 foreign women and children from 42 different nationalities, most of whose countries of origin refuse to repatriate them.
Financial Times
