More than 42,400 ISIS-linked foreigners remain stuck in northeast Syria: HRW

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday said that more than 42,400 foreigners accused of Islamic State (ISIS) links remain abandoned by their countries in camps and prisons in northeast Syria despite increased repatriations of women and children in recent months.

The HRW said that the Kurdish-led authorities are holding the detainees, most of them children, along with 23,200 Syrians in life-threatening conditions.

Furthermore, HRW said that recent Turkish air and artillery strikes have compounded the danger in northeast Syria. 

During the strikes in November, Turkey hit the vicinity of the Jerkin prison in Qamishlo, which holds hundreds of ISIS detainees, and killed eight guards of the al-Hol camp.

“But even before Turkey’s attacks, at least 42 people had been killed during 2022 in al-Hol, the largest camp, some by ISIS loyalists. Hundreds of others were killed in an attempted ISIS prison break in January,” HRW said.

Furthermore, children have drowned in sewage pits, died in tent fires, and been run over by water trucks, and hundreds have died from treatable illnesses, staff, aid workers, and detainees said.

“Nearly four years on, countries have run out of excuses for refusing to help their citizens trapped in life-threatening conditions in northeast Syria,” Letta Tayler, associate director of the Crisis and Conflict Division at Human Rights Watch, told Kurdistan 24.

“Governments that make it difficult for their nationals to come home may be complicit in their unlawful detention.”

The al-Hol and Roj camp hosts thousands of local and foreign ISIS families. Moreover, there are thousands of male ISIS detainees in prisons.

The SDF has repeatedly called on foreign countries to repatriate their citizens.