DERIK, Syria (North Press) – Speaking from a camp in the far northeast Syria, Emily Konecki, now free of her strict black Islamic State (ISIS) dress, said she wanted to go back to France to be reunited with her three children, who were repatriated by her country’s government a year and a half ago.
In 2013, the 37-year-old Konecki left France and came to Syria to join her husband who had left a year before to fight with ISIS in Syria, where she gave birth to three children.
Two years later, her husband was killed, and in 2016 she remarried another ISIS militant in Syria. She explains, “After the death of ISIS women’s husband, they must marry another one.”
Konecki is one of hundreds of ISIS women who has lived in Roj Camp since the military defeat of ISIS in Syria. The homeland governments of the majority of these women refuse to repatriate them.
ISIS lost its final stronghold in Syria in March 2019, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) along with the US-led Global Coalition announced, after fierce battles in the town of Baghouz in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, bringing an end to the so-called caliphate declared by the terrorist group in 2014.
After Baghouz, thousands of ISIS fighters were transferred to prisons, while their families were transferred to Hawl and Roj camps in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) areas.
ISIS families hail of more than 60 nationalities constitute an ongoing and challenging issue on the non-internationally recognized AANES, which repeatedly demands the concerned countries to repatriate their national.
The AANES also calls on the international powers to provide support for establishing rehabilitation centers and help in tackling the security situation in the facilities were foreign nationals stay.
Despite these repeated calls the majority of countries, including those participating in the Global coalition, refuse to repatriate their nationals.
Roj camp currently houses 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 report published by North Press.
The camp is unsafe
In the same camp, Buthayna Mubarak, from Tunisia, is demanding to leave the camp and return to her country, which she left in 2014, headed to Turkey, then to Syria to join the ISIS, where her son and daughter preceded her, according to what she told North Press.
Mubarak stayed for one and a half year in Hawl camp, which is known as a “ticking time bomb” due to the presence of extremists of ISIS wives and children, and tens of thousands of their supporters. Then she was transferred to Roj camp which shelters less strict women.
Mubarak said that she is living in fear in Roj camp even it is less dangerous than Hawl camp, which witnessed a lot of murder incidents.
“Here, you live in fear, you cannot sleep, at night we take turns guarding with my children, there is no rest,” she said.
In November 2021, international organizations topped by UN and European Commission warned against the danger of keeping ISIS wives in camps for a longer period and the possibility of becoming bloodier than the terrorist ISIS in the future.
Had no choice
Some women in the camp said they were only victims of their husbands’ will, and they had no choice but to follow them.
Hiba Abbas, an Egyptian woman who lives in Roj camp, called on her government to repatriate her from Syria. She stressed to North Press that she did not know that her destination was Syria when she left Egypt with her two daughters and husband, who joined ISIS.
“I consider myself as a victim who did nothing, they had misled me,” Abbas said.
After her husband was killed in 2016 while working with ISIS, Abbas tried many times to get out of Syria and return to her country, but all her attempts were in vain.
The 40-year-old woman from Kazakhstan, Alira Gumard, a mother of three, is calling to return to her country. She said that the reason why she came to Syria was the desire of her husband.
“I want to return to my country, I do not know anything about my husband’s fate,” she told North Press.
The question of ongoing ideological extremism within the camp itself poses a serious issue for the residents living in villages located near these camps because they are aware of riots and escape attempts. They also demand repatriating these women to their countries.