ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq provides rehabilitation programs for all returnees from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria that houses suspects linked to the Islamic State (ISIS), an official from the migration and displaced ministry said on Tuesday, amid plans to return all Iraqis by 2027.
“Those returning from al-Hol camp are included in community-based rehabilitation programs in al-Jada according to their progress, as some develop quickly and others are late in responding,” Karim al-Nouri, undersecretary for Iraq’s ministry of migration and displaced, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the ministry revealed that Iraq and the United Nations reached an agreement to repatriate all Iraqi nationals from the camp by 2027.
Iraqis and Syrians make up the majority of the 40,000 ISIS-linked people who have been held at the al-Hol camp in northeast Syria’s (Rojava) Hasaka province since the defeat of the jihadists in 2019. The camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism.
“Those remaining in the camp may create elements more dangerous than the terrorist ISIS itself,” Nouri stressed, adding that at least 20,000 of the camp’s residents are Iraqis.
Iraqi National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji in March said that around 20,000 Iraqis below the age of 18 are still at al-Hol. He described them as “time bombs.”
Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their nationals from the camps, but their calls have largely gone unanswered as most countries are unwilling to bring back their citizens due to security concerns.
The repatriation of ISIS-linked citizens has sparked opposition in Iraq, with tribes unwilling to accept and welcome people associated with the group that committed heinous human rights abuses and war crimes from 2014 to 2017, when they controlled vast swathes of the country.
Most repatriated individuals are resettled in al-Jada camp in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, to be prepared for reintegration into their communities and then returned to their hometowns.