Hanging on a thread of normalcy at vetting camp, ISIS-linked families await to return home

AL-JADA CAMP, Iraq - A few dozen people flocked to the gate of a vetting camp in Nineveh province in the blistering summer heat on Sunday after a visit to their families with suspected links with the Islamic State (ISIS), who are eagerly waiting to be processed to return to their homes and community.

Currently home to over 9 hundred people, al-Jada camp is presented by authorities as a "rehabilitation" center for Iraqi families coming back from northeast Syria's notorious al-Hol camp. It mainly houses those with suspected links to ISIS who are serving time to ensure they are not affiliated with the terror group. Several internally displaced persons (IDPs) also live in the camp. 

"Today [Sunday] is visiting day ... we call this a testing period for the families [inside the camp] to assess whether the community will accept their return or not," camp administrator Khalid Abdulkarim Ismael told Rudaw English as hot air swept the camp.

"It is the first step to their reunion," he added. The families usually have "one to two visits a week." 

Al-Jada camp opened its doors in May of last year. It has received five batches of people, numbering 606 families that totaled 2,467 people, according to data obtained from the compound's management.

Three hundred and ninety-two families have left the compound so far while 212 others remain, consisting of 942 people. 

"Majority" of the families are affiliated with ISIS, Ismael said. "Once a thing becomes a majority, then it becomes a security matter," he explained.

ISIS controlled swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in 2014 and was territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The terror group displaced people and committed heinous massacres that history will continue to remember.

The sprawling camp is lined up with 700 hundred blue tarp tents where women, children, and men temporarily live. 

Security measures at the camp are very tight. Visitors must show a special permit to be allowed inside.

Most women have their faces covered with the veil they covered their hair with, while young girls and boys run around the tents barefoot and mingle in a playground made for them.

The camp management roamed the facility along with Rudaw's team and attended every interview conducted. They also had appointed the tents the team was allowed to enter.

The residents receive "one to two" visits every week until they are allowed to go back home, said Ismael, accompanied by at least two other men from the compound administration.

The families attempt to maintain a sense of normality with the help of the activities set up and sponsored by nine NGOs, including the UN, according to Ismael.

"I examine and treat GBV cases ... women who have faced physical violence, sexual violence, rape cases, all types of GBV," case manager Nagham Marwan, who provides women and girls of the camp individual psychological support sessions, said.

"Most of the cases are of psychological abuse," Marwan emphasized, stating that the women are often "very responsive" to her sessions.

Women learn to sew while teenage girls paint and make accessories with colorful beads.

A young girl named Abeer spoke about how she wants to become an artist as she carefully added the final touches to a teddy bear she made from wool, a shy smile appearing on her face. 

Life in al-Hol camp

Fifty-year-old Gurjiya Mohammed arrived in al-Jada from al-Hol with the last batch of transferred families. She lived in the latter for five years.

Mohammed says she left Nineveh during the Battle of Mosul in 2016 and made her way to Syria. She has eight children, the three youngest live with her in al-Jada but she did not state where the rest were.

It was easy to cross to Syria "because of the fight ... we ran away from the shelling," she said of the tumultuous journey while sitting behind a sewing machine.

Al-Hol houses displaced families but also ISIS affiliates, including Iraqis and foreign nationals.

About 10,000 people who were displaced by conflict resided in the camp until late 2018. Its population drastically increased in the year after when the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) arrested thousands of ISIS fighters along with their wives and children when they took control of the group's last stronghold of Baghouz in Syria in March and sent them all to the camp.

Al-Hol now houses 56,000 individuals, according to UN numbers, among them 29,000 Iraqis. 

Iraqis at al-Hol "are in a very very poor situation," Mohammed said. "There is no safety there ... at all."

The camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism, with Kurdish and Iraqi authorities describing it as a "ticking time bomb," calling the situation in the camp "very dangerous." 

Media affiliated with the SDF said the camp saw its "deadliest" year in 2021, reporting 126 crimes. 

"The camp was good when we first arrived," said Mahmoud Ibrahim,27, who spent four years and a half at the camp.

Ibrahim, originally from Anbar, stated that murder and killings started soaring in the camp "after the people of Baghouz arrived," as a camp official sat on his right and another stood by the tent entrance.

"Then killings started to happen, they prohibited us from leaving our tents after 4:00 pm. If you had an ill [family] member, you could not treat them," he said from inside his tent with the Iraqi flag hanging behind him.

A young girl, aged 15, also spoke of the horror at al-Hol that seems to be haunting her to this day.

"It was dangerous. It was frightening at night," Esraa said with half of her face covered with a mask and a green veil covering her hair. "It was not safe." 

Esraa left then ISIS-held Tal Afar in the southeast of Mosul in 2017 and spent five years in al-Hol camp before being transferred to al-Jada two months ago with her mother and two sisters.

The residents who spoke to Rudaw all praised the "good conditions" of the camp, saying they are provided with "very good services," that they receive food, have electricity, and can walk around the area freely. None of those speaking to Rudaw acknowledged any links to ISIS.

Kurdish and US officials have made repeated calls on the international community to repatriate their nationals from the camps, where children are exposed to ISIS ideology, but only a few countries have responded positively. Most are worried about security concerns.

Iraq has repatriated about 600 ISIS fighters and 2,500 other people from al-Hol, US State Department's acting counterterrorism coordinator Timothy Betts said at a Middle East Institute conference earlier this month. 

Spending months and years of residence at al-Jada where life remains on hold, families dream of the day they are sent back to the community.

The community "will of course accept me back ... if someone comes back [from al-Hol] I will accept them wholeheartedly," Mohammed said as she hoped to reunite with her relatives soon.