US, Iraq discuss resettlement of Iraqis in Syria’s Hawl

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The US Ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, and Iraq’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, discussed repatriating Iraqis held in Hawl camp, in northeast Syria, during a meeting on Tuesday, May 30.

Hawl camp, sitting 12 km from the Iraqi border, is home to 50,989 people, according to the Rojava Information Center (RIC), a local monitor. Of these, 25,440 are Iraqis. Most Iraqis in Hawl camp were displaced as the US-led Global Coalition pushed back the Islamic State (ISIS).

Iraq committed itself to repatriating 5,000 of its nationals from the camp in 2018, though repatriations did not began in earnest until 2021. Since then, its efforts to return Iraqis have been “stop-start,” the RIC writes. The US-led Coalition has repeatedly pushed Baghdad to increase the number of returns.

The Iraqi government has repatriated at least 3,661 of its citizens since 2021, the RIC told North Press. Most are resettled to Ja’ada camp, in the Iraqi desert. In 2023, Baghdad returned 225 men, women and children from Hawl.

Iraqis in Hawl are often the target of killings by more radicalized members.

Moreover, Iraq has been taking back imprisoned ISIS members. Over 1,600 Iraqi ISIS members have been handed to Iraqi intelligence services from prisons and other camps.

ISIS lost its final stronghold in Syria in March 2019. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the support of the US-led Global Coalition, defeated ISIS 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 ISIS 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)-held areas.

Issue of the family members of the ISIS held in camps in northeast Syria constitutes an ongoing challenge for the non-internationally recognized AANES, which repeatedly demands that the concerned countries repatriate their nationals.

Also, the AANES continues to call on the international powers to provide support for establishing rehabilitation centers and help in tackling the security situation in the facilities were ISIS foreign nationals are held.

Despite many calls, the majority of countries, including those participating in the Global coalition, refuse to repatriate their nationals.

Reporting by Sasha Hoffman