Iraq focuses on Syria’s Hawl Camp with timid steps
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – Almost every political and security occasion in Iraq spots the light on Hawl Camp in northeast Syria indicating that some factors like geography and the big number of Iraqi nationals in the camp push Iraq to focus on it, yet with very timid level.
30,000 Iraqi nationals who are ISIS members or ISIS families live in Hawl Camp, the most dangerous camp worldwide.
Hawl Camp is a home for about 56,000 people, 36,000 of whom are underage, Hamrin Hassan, the camp manager told North Press in a previous statement.
Iraq is considered one of the countries that first took steps to repatriate their citizens from Hawl Camp.
In 2021, a joint committee was formed from National Security, Joint Operations, and the Ministry of Immigration to put a mechanism for the repatriation of Iraqis.
Ali Abbas, the spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Immigration said earlier that an Iraqi committee, in coordination with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was formed to visit the camp and meet the Iraqis.
“Four trips, included 450 families, left Hawl Camp for al-Jada’a Center in Nineveh Governorate for psychological and social rehabilitation,” Abbas said earlier.
In case the geography and big numbers of Iraqis were taken into consideration, yet the Iraqi efforts are still timid. Up to 5% of the Iraqis were only repatriated and were moved to al-Jada’a Center.
Theoretically, Iraqi official statements mostly issued by the state security pay great attention to the issue of Hawl Camp.
Last week, Iraq’s National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji met ambassadors of three countries and discussed with them the issue of Hawl Camp.
There are too many Iraqi nationals in the camp adjacent to Nineveh city in Iraq. The geographical factor may be the most important one that prompts Baghdad to think of the fate of Hawl Camp and labeled it for several times as the “Timing Ticking Bomb”. Similarly, Iraq’s stance resembles other countries’ which are far away from Syria and from the camp.
On Saturday, Baghdad hosted a conference on the international community commitment regarding Hawl Camp.
The conference ended with an international recommendation including the establishment of a group work between the Iraqi government and the UN to activate the international framework of the member countries in order to repatriate the refugees from northeast to their original countries.
Iraq calls the international community to dismantle Hawl Camp, repatriate the citizens and prosecute “terrorists” in their own countries to achieve a sustainable security in the region and in the world, al-Araji said on the sideline of the conference.
However, the momentum of statements are faced with sporadic calls to stop the repatriation of Iraqi refugees who are seen as a threat to the state security.
The Deputy of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) reiterated statements to news outlets that repatriation of the Iraqi refugees would jeopardize the security condition in Iraq mostly Nineveh.
On the other hand, Viyan Dakhil, another deputy of the PDK said Mosul is subjected to huge unfair by repatriating families of ISIS to Iraq.
However, the Iraqi authorities see the presence of their nationals in the camp as a ticking bomb, so they are considering taking them back to Iraq to work on their rehabilitation before it is too late and events similar to al-Sina’a prison, which occurred in early January, take place.
The Iraqi authorities intend to subject the retuning families, with the international organizations’ support, to rehabilitation programs. After coordinating with the dignitaries and relevant authorities in Iraq, part of the these families, which undergone the rehabilitation programs, were sent back to their hometowns in Iraq.
Nevertheless, if one of the returnees proved to be involved with ISIS, then, security authorities and the judicial system will take over.
Between 2019 and late 2021, AANES handed over 995 women and children of ISIS foreign nationals to their countries, according to the official statistics.