150 Iraqi families leave Syria’s Hawl
HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – On Friday, 150 Iraqi families left Hawl Camp east of Hasakah, northeast Syria, and headed to their country, years after residing in the camp.
The trip included 150 families numbering 620 individuals, and they headed towards al-Jad’a Camp south of Mosul in Nineveh Governorate.
Last week, an Iraqi delegation of the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displaced visited the camp in order to register names of individuals and families that wanted to get out of the Hawl camp.
A well informed source from the camp told North Press, “Two weeks after the visit of the Iraqi delegation, 150 families numbering 620 individuals have been taken out of the camp.”
“This is the sixth trip to take Iraqis out of the camp in 15 months,” the source added.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Iraqi government abstained from repatriating its nationals from the camp due to demands by tribal leaders not to repatriate them, accusing them of being members of the Islamic State Organization (ISIS), according to refugees.
Iraqi refugees in the Hawl Camp demand that their country accelerates measures to repatriate them to Iraq in light of the continuation of murders and dire security conditions in the camp.
Hawl Camp, 45 km east of the city of Hasakah, is a house for 55.829 individuals, including 28.725 Iraqis, 18.850 Syrians and 8.254 of foreign nationalities, according to the latest statistics obtained by North Press.
The camp is dubbed as one of the most dangerous camps worldwide for housing thousands of families of the ISIS fighters.
Co-chair of IDPs and Refugees Affairs of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), Sheikhmos Ahmad, in previous statements to North Press, called on the Iraqi government to accelerate measures to get Iraqis out of the camp.
Following pressure by the US-led Global Coalition and coordination between the AANES and the Iraqi government, trips to repatriate Iraqis resumed in 2021.
Since mid-2021, six trips of Iraqi families have been taken out of the camp to al-Jad’a Camp east Iraq.