US citizen demands be repatriated from camps in NE Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A US citizen, who is detained in Roj Camp, in northeast Syria, with other Islamic State Organization (ISIS) family members, said on Sunday she had been “brainwashed” before joining ISIS.
The 28-year-old Hoda Muthana told the News Movement, in an interview in Roj camp, that she still hopes to return to the US even if she will serve prison time, and then advocate against the extremist ISIS.
Roj camp, the second dangerous camp after Hawl Camp, is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), it is a house for 806 families, including 2.800 individuals of Arabs and foreigners, mostly women and children of ISIS members who hail from 62 countries, according to previous a report published by North Press.
Muthana, who was born in New Jersey to Yemeni immigrants, was raised in a conservative Muslim household in Hoover, Alabama.
Muthana said that she was brainwashed by online traffickers in order to join the group in 2014, as she was only 20 years old.
She regrets everything she did except for the child that she had with one of the three ISIS fighters that she got married to in Syria, according to her words.
In 2014, she told her family she was going on a school trip, but instead, she flew to Turkey and crossed into Syria.
The US government stripped her from her citizenship in 2016.
She added that she cannot expose the atrocities that ISIS committed due to fear of reprisal inside the camp, but once she gets out, she will do.
Hassan Shibly, an attorney said, “She was brainwashed and taken advantage of.”
“She was absolutely misguided…she was a teenager who was the victim of a very sophisticated recruitment operation that focuses on taking advantage of the young, the vulnerable, and the disenfranchised,” he said.
In November 2022, the US urged the repatriation of nationals of European countries from camps in northeast Syria, saying that it is “critical” to prevent the return of ISIS.