US welcomes efforts to repatriate nationals from Syria’s Hawl Camp – Price
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The Spokesman for the US Department of State, Ned Price, said on Tuesday that the United States appreciates the countries who put efforts in repatriating their nationals from Hawl Camp, east of Hasakah Governorate, northeast Syria.
“We welcome the efforts of our partners around the world, including our European partners, to repatriate their nationals. We think that it is the right and important thing to do, and it’s something we continue to discuss with them,” said Price in a press briefing on Tuesday.
Hawl Camp, 45 km east of the city of Hasakah, is a house for 55.829 individuals of the families of ISIS militants, including 28.725 Iraqis, 18.850 Syrians and 8.254 of foreign nationalities, according to the latest statistics obtained by North Press.
Recently, several countries repatriated their nationals from the camp including Russia, France, Britain and Iraq. This came after repeated calls by officials of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which controls the entire region of northeast Syria.
On Thursday, France and Russia repatriated 55 and 38 people respectively of ISIS nationals from the camps in the AANES-held areas.
As for Iraq, the spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displaced Ali Abbas Jahangir told North Press on October 19 that they had brought back 659 Iraqi nationals from Hawl Camp the day before.
Britain, which had never returned a national before, repatriated on October 13 an ISIS woman and her son from Hawl Camp to the United Kingdom.
Even though repatriations take place regularly, the process is still too slow considering the large number of nationals in Hawl and other camps of northeast Syria.