Exit of ISIS families from Syria’s Hawl Camp reduces risk of revival: AANES’ official
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – The exit of Islamic State (ISIS) families from Hawl Camp reduces the risk of their revival, while the risk continues if the situation does not change, an official in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) said on Tuesday.
Hawl Camp includes 64,373 people, 9,544 of which are wives and children of ISIS fighters; this number exceeds the capacity of the camp, which was built hastily during the Gulf War in the 1990s, according to the camp’s administration.
“Children in Hawl Camp grow up according to extremist thoughts that spread among residents of the camp,” consultant in AANES, Anwar al-Mosharref, said.
Having ISIS militants in detention centers and their families in Hawl Camp “forms a security and economic burden for the AANES,” al-Mosharref told North Press.
The AANES stresses that all countries that have citizens in Hawl Camp must repatriate them and pay attention to some children that are now over the age of 18, the official pointed out.
If an international court for ISIS militants is established, AANES will be ready to secure a place and provide help while receiving sufficient international support, he added.
The response of countries whose citizens of ISIS families are found in Hawl Camp is “slow,” Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the IDPs and Refugees’ Affairs Office, said on Monday.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi addressed a speech to the meeting of US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS that was held on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Rome on Monday.
“In order to guarantee a sustainable victory, we should not forget about the tens of thousands of women, children, and ISIS fighters who are still in camps and detention centers in north and east Syria,” Abdi stated.
Additionally, Abdi called on the US-led Global Coalition to repatriate those people to their homelands, support education and rehabilitation/de-radicalization programs, and support stability and economic recovery in liberated areas to address the root causes of extremism.