Syria to shutter camps housing thousands linked to Islamic State
Syria is to permanently close two camps for displaced people in the northeast that house foreigners and other civilians connected to Islamic State militants, a government official announced Friday.
The U.N. estimates that more than 28,000 people, primarily Syrians and Iraqis, are housed in the al-Hol and Roj camps, with about 6,000 foreigners in al-Hol and another 2,000 in Roj.
A nonprofit that has worked in both camps, the Swiss-based Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, told Reuters it understands Damascus plans to empty and dismantle the sites within a year.
Following the disorderly retreat of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Syrian forces recently seized control of al-Hol. The SDF still maintains Roj where people had in recent days reported being confined to their tents as humanitarian groups evacuated due to mounting security issues.
More than 50,000 people who escaped IS’s last strongholds as the group lost territory over the last decade were once kept inside the two camps. Numbers have declined due to repatriations, primarily by Iraq.
British-born IS member Shamima Begum is one of the foreigners detained.
Unlike detention centers that house suspected combatants, the civilian relocation camps are for families and other individuals with suspected IS ties.
