Women at Al-Hol camp collect donations to transport ISIS families

Doaa Emam

Batches of women and children have left the Al-Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria since July after the Roj camp was expanded in coordination with the United Nations and the international coalition led by Washington. The living conditions in the Roj camp are considered better than at Al-Hol, where humanitarian and international organizations have always warned of the difficult conditions due to overcrowding and lack of basic services, especially in the wake of the corona pandemic.

More than 75 foreign families of ISIS fighters were transferred from the crowded Al-Hol camp to the Roj camp in Hasakah with the knowledge of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration and at the request of families who showed their willingness to rehabilitate.

The less strict women asked to from Al-Hol with their children, claiming that they are ready for rehabilitation in order to then return to their own countries and reintegrate into their societies after showing remorse.

According to UN estimates, Al-Hol is home to about 65,000 displaced Syrians and Iraqis, as well as thousands of fighters from about 50 countries, including 12,000 children and women, who stay in a special section under heavy security.

In parallel with the transfer of ISIS families, the terrorist organization is collecting donations aimed at smuggling women and children from Al-Hol. Earlier, a woman named Maryam managed to escape and film a clip explaining the living conditions at Al-Hol, which was published through ISIS accounts on Facebook and Telegram.

According to a study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) entitled “Al-Hawl Camp and the Potential Resurgence of ISIS”, the camp has become a gathering point for ISIS fighters who were captured during various battles. Therefore, the current ISIS leadership views the camp as a major stronghold due to the large number of ISIS supporters of various nationalities living in the camp.

WINEP noted the basic factors that make Al-Hol camp a stronghold for an ISIS resurgence, including that parts of the camp enjoy greater openness to the outside world, as Syrians in particular are able to keep relatively connected to life outside the camp, either through the legal use of mobile devices and other means of communication, or financially through the transfer of remittances.

The study by WINEP said that opening Al-Hol to the outside world may provide the ability for ISIS supporters and cells inside the camp to communicate with those affiliated with the organization around the world. Meanwhile, it is difficult to estimate the number of women in the camp who are still loyal to ISIS, as those who support ISIS were not separated from the rest of the camp population. As a result, the residents inside the camp have been absorbing extremist ideas for several years.

Despite the monitoring practiced by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), terms such as killing, beheading, unbelievers, raids, revolutionary, and caliphate are still very common in the daily life and discussions between the ISIS families at the camp, according to the study.

The study added that ISIS women formed secret committees to monitor the personal lives of camp residents in order to see whether or not they still adhere to the terrorist organization’s ideas.