Politics

Iraqi civilian killed with silenced firearm in notorious Syrian al-Hol camp: SOHR

Conditions at the sprawling camp are “difficult by any measure,” a UN official said recently, adding that “humanitarians have expressed alarm at the deteriorating security situation in the camp following a rise in violent incidents.”

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2020/11/08 22:00

middle east Syria SDF al-Hol ISIS

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Sunday reported that suspected Islamic State gunmen assassinated a civilian working with the local Internal Security Forces, also known as Asayish, in the al-Hol camp.

The SOHR report added that this is the second incident in which individuals seen as collaborators with the Asayish have been killed with silenced firearms. On November 5, another Iraqi civilian was killed in the camp.

According to local reports, there has been an increase in murders in the al-Hol camp. An Iraqi refugee was killed on October 9 by attackers who also used a silenced gun.

In October, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who run the camp, announced that they had captured three members of an Islamic State cell operating in the al-Hol area and confiscated weapons they were intending to smuggle to residents of the camp who are sympathetic to their cause.

Although the SDF and Coalition announced the Islamic State’s territorial defeat in Syria on March 23, 2019, in Baghouz, the terror group’s sleeper cell attacks persist in areas liberated from their brutal rule.

In the same month, the United Nations voiced significant concern over security conditions in the camp.

“There are around 34,000 children under the age of 12 in Al Hol – more than 120 of them are unaccompanied or separated from their families and living in an interim care centre in the camp,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his daily briefing to the press.

Conditions at the sprawling camp, he explained, are “difficult by any measure,” adding that “humanitarians have expressed alarm at the deteriorating security situation in the camp following a rise in violent incidents.”

According to a monthly report of the Syria-based Rojava Information Center (RIC), released on October 8, compiling Islamic State attacks and raids launched against the group’s militants by the SDF, there has recently been an increase in attacks in the al-Hol camp.

The facility “also saw 6 attacks carried out by female ISIS affiliates. These 6 attacks resulted in 7 injuries and 2 deaths, one by hanging and another shot head. It is clear the women of al-Hol are able to accumulate supplies as several of these attacks involved firearms or knives,” the report said.

“There were also at least 4 attempted escapes, involving 10 women and several children, thwarted in Hol Camp, with camp officials stating they had blocked over 700 escape attempts during the past year.”

According to UN data from July, al-Hol held 65,406 people at the time. Of these, 47 percent were Iraqis (30,573), 38 percent Syrians (24,914), and 15 percent third-country nationals, the adults of which were mostly foreigners who traveled to Syria or Iraq to join the Islamic State (9,912).

However, the number of Syrians in the camp is decreasing after in early October the local authorities decided to expedite and increase departures of displaced Syrian families.

On October 13, 289 individuals from al-Hol returned to their homes in Deir al-Zor province, the RIC reported, adding that some 4,000 Syrians have returned home this year through a tribal sponsorship program.

The center also added that since October, Syrians at the camp have been able to register their name to return home, a change from the past when they had to find a tribal sponsor.

Despite this, any way out of the camp for Iraqi refugees and displaced Syrians remains complicated, not least because many do not want to return to Iraq or to areas under Syrian government control.

Editing by Khrush Najari