UN urges 57 countries to repatriate nationals from ‘squalid’ Rojava camps

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The United Nations on Monday urged 57 states to repatriate their nationals from “squalid” camps in northeast Syria.

“UN human rights experts expressed serious concerns at the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation at the al-Hol and Roj camps in northeast Syria,” reads a statement released by the UN on Monday, urging 57 states to repatriate their nationals at the camp.

Approximately 68,000 people – Syrians, Iraqis, and foreigners – are held in al-Hol camp in Hasaka province. Most are the wives and children of Islamic State (ISIS) group militants. Some 43,000 of them are children.

The UN classified the need for repatriation as “urgent”, nothing that people living in those camps are facing “serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”

The UN in January reported 12 murders had taken place at al-Hol camp in just over two weeks, sounding the alarm over an "increasingly untenable" security situation.

The camp is run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has repeatedly warned of a volatile security situation and its limited capacity to control camp residents.

The UN counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov in late-January urged countries to repatriate the 27,000 children stranded in al-Hol camp in an informal Security Council meeting late January, defining them as “remain stranded, abandoned to their fate,” vulnerable to be preyed on by Islamic State enforcers, “and at risk of radicalization within the camp.”

Human rights groups have called conditions in Roj and al-Hol camps as “filthy”, “often inhuman” and “life-threatening”.

The repatriation of children to their home countries has been slow, with many nations refusing to take children back except in exceptional circumstances. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in January that the NES has handed over just over 150 foreign women and children to their countries of origin since the beginning of 2020.

Iraq is notably missing from the list of 57 countries requested to repatriate their citizens, despite al-Hol camp hosting a large number of Iraqi nationals.

Rudaw English reached out to OHCHR for comment on why Iraq was not listed, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Ten Iraqis were amongst the camp residents killed in al-Hol , Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) office for internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugees, told AFP, upping the number of murders in the camp since the beginning of the year to 14.

The official blamed "IS cells in al-Hol" targeting "those cooperating with camp management", with the aim to "sow chaos and fear".

But a humanitarian source recently told AFP that tribal tensions between residents could also be to blame for some murders.

Iraq’s deputy minister of displacement and migration told Iraqi state media in January that Baghdad is against the “dangerous” return of Iraqis from al-Hol camp.

“A decision has not been made regarding the return of Iraqis displaced in al-Hol camp, and there has been refusal to repatriate them because of the danger they impose,” Karim Nuri said.

ISIS attacked both Syria and Iraq in 2014, taking control of large swaths land. Thousands of men and women from Western countries joined the group to help establish the ISIS caliphate. When the Kurdish-led SDF supported by the global coalition against ISIS were beating the group back in 2018 and 2019, they put men suspected of fighting for ISIS in jail, and their wives and children in detention camps in Hasaka province.

Rojava officials have warned that leaving children to grow up in the camps could put them at risk of radicalization.

"Those children were aged 14 [when they were captured], but they have turned 18 or 19 now. They have become a generation that can help Daesh get stronger and regroup, creating a great threat again,” senior official Elham Ahmed said in November.

UN urges 57 countries to repatriate nationals from ‘squalid’ Rojava camps

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