6th group of Iraqis departs Al-Hol Camp this year

As part of coordination between the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the Committee for Migration and Displacement in the Iraqi Parliament, a new group of Iraqi families residing in Al-Hol Camp, located south of Hasaka in the Jazera Canton, was returned to Iraq today.

The new group, which marks the sixth return this year, included 161 families comprising about 607 people.

The Iraqi authorities are transporting the returnees to the Jadaa Camp in Nineveh Province. This marks the 23rd group of Iraqis repatriated from Al-Hol Camp to Iraq since 2022.

Al-Hol Camp was originally established to shelter Iraqi refugees in early 1991 during the Second Gulf War. It was later reopened after the influx of Iraqis into Syria following the 2003 Iraq invasion, becoming one of three camps along the Syrian-Iraqi border.

During the Syrian crisis, ISIS mercenaries took over the camp and used it as a crossing point between Syria and Iraq until it was liberated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2016. The camp then began to receive Syrian refugees fleeing battles between the regime and armed groups vying for power.

After the defeat of ISIS in its last stronghold in the town of Baghouz in the spring of 2019, Iraqi families and the families of ISIS mercenaries moved into the camp.

Al-Hol Camp is considered a ticking time bomb because it houses thousands of ISIS women and tens of thousands of their children, most of whom are nearing adulthood, forming a potential ready-made army that ISIS mercenaries continually seek to reach.

A-H

ANHA