“The foreign detainees have never been brought before a court, making their detention arbitrary as well as indefinite,” reads a statement released by the rights watchdog on Tuesday, which says that nearly 43,000 foreign nationals are being held, including 27,500 children, many in camps.
Home to nearly 62,000 people, Al-Hol camp, in northeast Syria’s Hasaka province is mostly home to women and children linked to Islamic State (ISIS) militants. Conditions in the camp have previously been condemned by Human Rights Watch as “filthy and often inhuman.”
Tens of people, mostly Iraqi refugees, have been killed in the camp in recent months. The deteriorating security situation has prompted some countries to expand repatriation from the camps.
“Men, women, and children from around the world are entering a third year of unlawful detention in life-threatening conditions in northeast Syria while their governments look the other way,” said Letta Tayler, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, in the Tuesday statement. “Governments should be helping to fairly prosecute detainees suspected of serious crimes and free everyone else, not helping to create another Guantanamo.”
On Thursday, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) called on the international community to continue reparation efforts, deeming them as currently insufficient.
"The AANES rejects the claims that ISIS fighters are illegally detained in our region, as we repeatedly called on establishing a tribunal to prosecute them. The AANES welcomes the cooperation with the international community on the issues of repatriating the children, solving the issue of women and making reparation for the victims," it said.
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