UNITED NATIONS: The UN counterterrorism chief said his office received information that 700 people died recently in two camps in northeast Syria, where more than 70,000 mainly women and children connected to Daesh fighters are detained in “very dire conditions.”
Vladimir Vorontsov told a news conference Thursday that the people, including children, died of “lack of medicine, lack of food” at the Al-Hol and Roj camps, which are overseen by Kurdish-led forces allied with the United States who spearheaded the fight against Daesh.
He said the deaths in the camps created “feelings of anger.”
Vorontsov did not clarify when the 700 reportedly died or what the source of the information was. The Kurdish Red Crescent said in January that 511 people died in the largest camp, Al-Hol, in 2019. The overcrowded camps have a high child mortality rate. So far, there has been no known outbreak of coronavirus in the camps. A UN team visited the largest one earlier this month.
Vorontsov urged the international community to tackle “the huge problem” of what to do with these people, saying keeping them in camps “is very dangerous.” He warned that “they could create very explosive materials that could be very helpful for terrorists to restart their activities” in Syria and Iraq.
Daesh, which once controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria, lost its last Syrian strongholds in early 2019. But despite the loss of its self-styled caliphate, UN experts said earlier this year that the extremist group is mounting increasingly bold attacks in Syria and Iraq and is planning for the breakout of its fighters in detention facilities.
In addition to the Al-Hol and Roj camps, the Kurdish fighters are guarding thousands of Daesh fighters and boys in prisons.
After Daesh militants lost control of the oil-rich northeast, Turkey invaded areas along its borders last October and now controls slivers of land in the very complex region. There are tensions between the Turkish-allied fighters and Kurdish groups, which Ankara considers terrorists. In addition, hundreds of US troops remain in northeast Syria.
The International Crisis Group reported on April 7 that there are 66,000 women and children in Al-Hol and 4,000 in Roj, most of them relatives of Daesh extremists, “but some former affiliates of the group themselves.” The Brussels-based think tank said that the majority are either Syrians or Iraqis, with the numbers roughly split, and around 13,500 are from other countries.
The group said humanitarian workers described the detention sites “as ridden with tuberculosis and perilously overcrowded, with one speaking of `dramatic mortality rates’.”
Vorontsov said “no country would like to have these people back, with this very negative and very dangerous terrorist background.”
But he said there are about 9,000 children and the first priority should be to save those under 6 years old, “because in this period of time children are absolutely not in the position to be indoctrinated.”
Vorontsov said the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, which he heads, is pushing the issue very strongly with countries whose citizens are detained. Only a small number are repatriating their citizens, including Central Asian countries, the United States and Russia, he said.
Women are “a more difficult story,” Vorontsov said.
There are “victims of terrorism” who didn’t understand what they were doing when they accompanied the men in their families to Syria and Iraq, he said, “but there are a lot of radicalized women among detained people in camps.”
Vorontsov said he believes the way forward is to prosecute the women and then rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society, but he conceded that it’s “a very challenging issue.”
UN official: 700 people died in Syrian camps for Daesh families
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UN official: 700 people died in Syrian camps for Daesh families
- Vorontsov told a news conference Thursday that the people, including children, died of “lack of medicine, lack of food” at the Al-Hol and Roj camps
- The overcrowded camps have a high child mortality rate
US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement
WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies France, Germany and Britain called Sunday for “de-escalation” in Syria and urged in a joint statement for the protection of civilians and infrastructure.
“The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict, in line with UNSCR 2254,” read a statement issued by the US State Department, referencing the 2015 UN resolution that endorsed a peace process in Syria.
Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference
- Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory
LONDON: Britain will provide an additional 19 million pounds ($24 million) in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the international development minister said Monday, calling for Israel to give greater access ahead of a key conference on the conflict.
“Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter,” the minister, Anneliese Dodds, said in a statement as she headed for a three-day visit to the region, including an international conference in Cairo Monday on the Gaza Strip’s aid needs.
“The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis,” she added.
“Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza.”
Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory.
The new UK funding will be split into 12 million pounds for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), and seven million pounds for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the statement said.
UNRWA announced Sunday it had halted the delivery of aid through the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza because of safety fears, saying the situation had become “impossible.”
Britain has committed to spending a total of 99 million pounds this year in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territories, the government said.
After Dodds’s Cairo stop, the minister is to travel to the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Islamist militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 44,429 in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets
- The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect
DAMASCUS: The Syrian rescue service known as the White Helmets said early on Monday on X that at least 25 people have been killed in northwestern Syria in airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government and Russia on Sunday.
In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension
- The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militants groups attacking both government forces and Kurdish YPG fighters in and around the northern Aleppo province over the weekend, a Syrian war monitor said
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s top diplomat and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Sunday about the “rapidly developing” conflict in Syria where militants have made gains.
Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed by telephone “the need for de-escalation and the protection of civilian lives and infrastructure in Aleppo and elsewhere,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The call came after Syrian militants and their Turkish-backed allies launched their biggest offensive in years, seizing control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
According to a Turkish foreign ministry source, Fidan told Blinken Ankara was “against any development that would increase instability in the region” and said Turkiye would “support moves to reduce the tension in Syria.”
He also said “the political process between the regime and the opposition should be finalized” to ensure peace in Syria while insisting that Ankara would “never allow terrorist activities against Turkiye nor against Syrian civilians.”
The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militant groups attacking government forces and Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) fighters in and around Aleppo, a Syrian war monitor said.
Turkiye sees the YPG as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led a decades-long insurgency against Ankara.
The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect.
More than 400 people have so far been killed in the offensive, most of them combatants, a Syrian war monitor said.
The State Department said the two also discussed “humanitarian efforts in Gaza and the need to bring the war to an end” as well as efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Fidan said Israel “should keep its promises in order for the Lebanon ceasefire to become permanent” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza “as soon as possible.”
The pair also discussed Ukraine and South Caucasus, the source said.
Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces
- Russia launched airstrikes on militant targets in Aleppo for the first time since 2016
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday said it was helping the Syrian army “repel” armed insurgents in three northern provinces, as Moscow seeks to support the government led by its ally Bashar al-Assad.
An Islamist-dominated militant alliance launched an offensive against the Syrian government on Wednesday, with Syrian forces losing control of the city of Aleppo on Sunday, according to a war monitor.
“The Syrian Arab Army, with the assistance of the Russian Aerospace Forces, is continuing its operation to repel terrorist aggression in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo,” the Russian military said in a briefing on its website.
“Over the past day, missile and bombing strikes were carried out on places where militants and equipment were gathered,” it said in the same briefing, without saying where or by whom.
It said at least “320 militants were destroyed.”
Russia announced earlier this week that it was bombing militant targets in the war-torn country, with Russian warplanes striking parts of Aleppo — Syria’s second city — for the first time since 2016, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Moscow is Syrian leader Assad’s most important military backer, having turned the tide of the civil war in his favor when it intervened in 2015.
