BAGHDAD: Iraq is stepping up repatriation of its citizens from a camp in northeastern Syria housing tens of thousands of people, mostly wives and children of Daesh fighters but also supporters of the militant group.
It’s a move that Baghdad hopes will reduce cross-border militant threats and eventually lead to shutting down the facility.
After US-backed and Kurdish-led fighters defeated the Daesh group in Syria in March 2019 — ending its self-proclaimed “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria — thousands of Daesh fighters and their families were taken to the camp known as Al-Hol.
Many of them were Iraqi nationals.
Today, Iraqi officials see the facility, close to the Iraq-Syria border, as a major threat to their country’s security, a hotbed of the militants’ radical ideology and a place where thousands of children have been growing up into future militants.
It’s “a time bomb that can explode at any moment,” warned Ali Jahangir, a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displaced. Since January, more than 5,000 Iraqis have been repatriated, from Al-Hol, with more expected in the coming weeks, he said.
It is mainly women and children who are sent home. Iraqi men who have committed crimes as Daesh members rarely ask to go back for fear of being put on trial. Those who express readiness to return, have camp authorities send their names to Baghdad, where the government does a security cross-check and grants final approval.
Once in Iraq, the detainees are usually taken to the Jadaa camp near the northern city of Mosul, where they undergo rehabilitation programs with the help of UN agencies before they are allowed back to their hometowns or villages.
The programs involve therapy sessions with psychologists and educational classes meant to help them shed a mindset adopted under Daesh.
Iraq has been urging other countries to repatriate their citizens from al Hol, describing the camp at a conference held in June in Baghdad as a “source for terrorism.”
At the gathering, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad Sahhaf said it was critical for all countries with citizens at Al-Hol “to repatriate them as soon as possible in order to eventually close the camp.”
The alternative, he warned, is a resurgence of the Daesh group.
The heavily-guarded facility, overseen by Syrian Kurdish-led forces allied with the United States, was once home to 73,000 people, the vast majority of them Syrians and Iraqis. Over the past few years, the population dropped to just over 48,000 and about 3,000 were released since May.
Those still at the camp include citizens of about 60 other countries who had joined Daesh, which is why closing Al-Hol will require efforts beyond Iraq and Syria, an Iraqi Defense ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The camp currently has 23,353 Iraqis, 17,456 Syrians and 7,438 other nationalities, according to Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced in northeastern Syria. And though the foreigners are a minority, they are seen by many as the most problematic at Al-Hol — persistently loyal to the core Daesh ideology.
So far this year, Ahmad said, two groups of Syrians have left the camp for their hometowns in Syria. Earlier in September, 92 families consisting of 355 people returned to the northern city of Raqqa, once the capital of the Daesh caliphate. In May, 219 people returned to the northern town of Manbij.
Syrian nationals are released when Kurdish authorities overseeing the camp determine they are no longer a threat to society. The release of other nationalities is more complicated, since their countries of origin must agree to take them back.
Those of non-Syrian or Iraqi nationalities live in a part of the camp known as the Annex, considered the home of the most die-hard Daesh supporters. Many of them had traveled thousands of miles to join the extremist group after Daesh swept across the region in 2014.
In late August, 31 women and 64 children from the camp were returned to the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan on a special flight, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced and thanked the US government for providing “assistance and logistical support” for the repatriation.
But other countries — particularly in the West — have largely balked at taking back their nationals who were part of Daesh.
Despite the extremist group’s defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, Daesh sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks. Reports of grisly crimes inside Al-Hol itself have shocked rights groups, which describe the camp’s conditions as inhumane, particularly for children.
Human Rights Watch has cited inadequate food, water and medical care, as well as the physical and sexual abuse of inmates by guards and fellow detainees. Ageed Ibrahim of Rights Defense Initiative, a human rights group in northeastern Syria, has appealed for humanitarian assistance to improve living conditions for people still in the camp.
The US military says reducing the camp’s population is a necessary step in the ongoing fight against Daesh and an important part of its long-term defeat.
The United States has some 900 troops stationed in eastern Syria alongside an unknown number of contractors. The troops, who first arrived eight years ago, work alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella dominated by Kurdish fighters.
The camp “is certainly a security concern over time,” said US Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, the commanding general of the anti-Daesh coalition. He cited the reduction of killings inside the camp as an indication that reducing the population there helps improve security.
“Our State Department, working with other ministries of foreign affairs, are focused on decreasing the numbers there to improve the conditions in that camp,” he said.
The US military posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, recently that successful repatriations from Al-Hol ensure that “safety, security, and stability are maintained in the region.”
Iraq steps up repatriations from Daesh camp in Syria, hoping to reduce militant threats
https://arab.news/zgfz5
Iraq steps up repatriations from Daesh camp in Syria, hoping to reduce militant threats
- It’s a move Baghdad hopes will eventually lead to shutting down the facility
- The facility, close to the Iraq-Syria border, a place where children have been growing up into future militants.
‘The janjaweed are coming’: Sudanese recount atrocities in RSF attack on a Darfur camp
- The RSF has repeatedly claimed Zamzam and nearby Abu Shouk Camp were used as bases by the military and its allied militias
- The paramilitaries destroyed Zamzam’s only functioning medical center, killing nine workers from Relief International
Now 31, Bakheit fled Zamzam as the janjaweed’s descendants — a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces — stormed into the camp and went on a three-day rampage, killing at least 400 people, after months of starving its population with a siege.
Bakheit and a dozen other residents and aid workers told The Associated Press that RSF fighters gunned down men and women in the streets, beat and tortured others and raped and sexually assaulted women and girls.
The April 11 attack was the worst ever suffered by Zamzam, Sudan’s largest displacement camp, in its 20 years of existence. Once home to some 500,000 residents, the camp has been virtually emptied. The paramilitaries burned down large swaths of houses, markets and other buildings.
“It’s a nightmare come true,” Bakheit said. “They attacked mercilessly.”
The attack came after months of famine
The attack on Zamzam underscored that atrocities have not ended in Sudan’s 2-year-old war, even as the RSF has suffered heavy setbacks, losing ground recently to the military in other parts of the country.
Throughout the war, the RSF has been accused by residents and rights groups of mass killings and rapes in attacks on towns and cities, particularly in Darfur. Many of RSF’s fighters originated from the janjaweed, who became notorious for atrocities in the early 2000s against people identifying as East or Central African in Darfur.
“Targeting civilians and using rape as a war weapon and destroying full villages and mass killing, all that has been the reality of the Sudan war for two years,” said Marion Ramstein, MSF emergency field coordinator in North Darfur.
Zamzam Camp was established in 2004 to house people driven from their homes by janjaweed attacks. Located just south of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, it swelled over the years to cover an area 8 kilometers (5 miles) long by about 3 kilometers (2 miles) wide.
In the spring of 2024, the RSF clamped a siege around Zamzam as it moved against el-Fasher, one of the last strongholds of the Sudanese military in Darfur.
Many have died of starvation under the siege, Bakheit and others said. “For too long, there was no option but to eat grass and tree leaves,” she said.
Famine was declared in the camp in August after RSF attacks forced the UN and aid groups to pull out of Zamzam. A comprehensive death toll from the famine is not known.
Ahlam Al-Nour, a 44-year-old mother of five, said her youngest child, a 3-year-old, died of severe malnutrition in December.
The RSF has repeatedly claimed Zamzam and nearby Abu Shouk Camp were used as bases by the military and its allied militias. It said in a statement that it took control of the camp on April 11 to “secure civilians and humanitarian workers.” It denied its fighters targeted civilians. The RSF did not reply to AP’s questions on the attack.
‘The janjaweed are coming’
Bakheit, who lived on the southern edge of Zamzam, said she heard loud explosions and heavy gunfire around 2 a.m. April 11. The RSF started with heavy shelling, and people panicked as the night sky lit up and houses burst into flames, Bakheit said.
By sunrise, the RSF-led fighters broke into her area, storming houses, kicking residents out and seizing valuables, Bakheit and others said. They spoke of sexual harassment and rape of young women and girls by RSF fighters.
“The children were screaming, ‘The janjaweed are coming’,” Bakheit said.
About two dozen women who fled to the nearby town of Tawila reported that they were raped during the attack, said Ramstein, who was in Tawila at the time. She said the number is likely much higher because many women are too ashamed to report rapes.
“We’re talking about looting. We’re talking about beating. We’re talking about killing, but also about a lot of rape,” she said.
The paramilitaries rounded up hundreds of people, including women and children. Bakheit said fighters whipped, beat, insulted and sexually harassed her in front of her children as they drove her family from their home.
She said she saw houses burning and at least five bodies in the street, including two women and a boy, the ground around them soaked in blood.
The fighters gathered Bakheit and about 200 other people in an open area and interrogated them, asking about anyone fighting for the military and its allied militias.
“They tortured us,” said Al-Nour, who was among them.
Al-Nour and Bakheit said they saw RSF fighters shoot two young men in the head during the interrogation. They shot a third man in the leg and he lay bleeding and screaming, they said.
One video shared online by RSF paramilitaries showed fighters wearing RSF uniforms by nine bodies lying motionless on the ground. A fighter says he is inside Zamzam and that they would kill people “like this,” pointing to the bodies on the ground.
Much of the camp was burned
The RSF rampage, which also targeted Abu Shouk Camp north of el-Fasher, went on for days.
The paramilitaries destroyed Zamzam’s only functioning medical center, killing nine workers from Relief International. They killed at least 23 people at a religious school, mostly young students studying the Qur’an, according to the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.
Much of the south and east of the camp was burned to the ground, the General Coordination said.
Satellite imagery from April 16 showed thick black smoke rising from several active fires in the camp. At least 1.7 square kilometers (0.65 square miles) appeared to have been burned down between April 10-16, said a report by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which analyzed and published the imagery. That is about 10 percent of the camp’s area.
The imagery showed vehicles around the camp and at its main access points, which HRL said were probably RSF checkpoints controlling entry and exit.
By April 14, only about 2,100 people remained in the camp, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
An arduous journey
After being detained for three hours, Bakheit, Al-Nour and dozens of other women and children were released by the paramilitaries.
They walked for hours under the burning summer sun. Bakheit and Al-Nour said that as they passed through the camp, they went by burning houses, the destroyed main market and bodies of men, women, children in the streets, some of them charred.
They joined an exodus of others fleeing Zamzam and heading to the town of Tawila, 64 kilometers (40 miles) west of El Fasher. Al-Nour said she saw at least three people who died on the road, apparently from exhaustion and the effects of starvation and dehydration.
“The janjaweed, once again, kill and torture us,” Bakheit said. “Like my mother did about 20 years ago, I had no option but to take my children and leave.”
Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says
- Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war
CAIRO: Israeli strikes targeted the vicinity of Syria’s Damascus, Hama and Daraa countryside late on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The strikes on Damascus countryside killed one civilian and injured four others in Hama, SANA added.
Israel’s repeated strikes on Syria act as a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus, which Israel views as a potential threat on its border.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes on Syria on Friday, saying it targeted “a military site, anti-aircraft cannons, and surface-to-air missile infrastructure.”
The Israeli army has previously said it targeted Syria’s military infrastructure, including headquarters and sites containing weapons and equipment, since mainly Sunni Muslim Islamist fighters toppled President Bashar Assad in December.
Earlier on Friday, Israel bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus, in its clearest warning yet to Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities of its readiness to ramp up military action, which has included strikes it said were in support of the country’s Druze minority.
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town
- RSF paramilitaries say they took key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state
- Area is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade
CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group claimed a “sweeping victory” Friday saying it took control of the key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state in a fight that intensified a day earlier.
A victory there by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, would mark a strategic loss for Sudan’s military in its war with the paramilitary force as the territory is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade.
The Sudanese army didn’t immediately comment on its social media channels on whether it lost Al Nahud to its rival.
Sudan’s Culture and Information Minister Khalid Ali Aleisir said on his Facebook account on Friday the RSF committed crimes against defenseless citizens in the town, looting their properties and destroying public facilities.
The RSF said on its Telegram channel Friday that it destroyed vehicles belonging to the army and seized their weapons and ammunition during the battle for Al Nahud. The paramilitary group also claimed that it managed to secure the city’s facilities and markets after defeating the army.
The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of the capital Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.
RSF attacks in Al Nahud have killed more than 300 unarmed civilians, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union said on Facebook on Friday. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that figure.
The Resistance Committees of Al Nahud condemned the RSF attacks, which it said began Thursday morning.
“They invaded the city, stormed residential neighborhoods, terrorized unarmed civilians, and committed cold-blooded murders against innocent civilians whose only crime was to cling to their dignity and refuse to leave their homes to the machine of killing and terror,” the Resistance Committees said Thursday on Facebook.
An army loss of Al Nahud would impact its operational capabilities in Northern Kordofan state, according to the Sudan War Monitor, an open source collaborative project that has been documenting the two-year-war. Al Nahud is a strategic town because it’s located along a main road that the army could use to advance into the Darfur region, which the RSF mostly controls.
Al Nahud also shelters displaced people fleeing from Al-Obeid, Umm Kadada, Khartoum and El-Fasher — the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Darfur Victims Support Organization.
Meanwhile, in North Darfur, the fighting has killed at least 542 people in the last three weeks, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. This figure includes the recent RSF attacks on El Fasher and Abu Shouk displacement camp, which killed at least 40 civilians.
“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Türk i n a statement on Thursday.
Türk also mentioned “extremely disturbing” reports of extrajudicial killings committed by RSF, with at least 30 men in civilian clothing executed by the paramilitary fighters in Al Salha in southern Omdurman.
“I have personally alerted both leaders of the RSF and SAF to the catastrophic human rights consequences of this war. These harrowing consequences are a daily, lived reality for millions of Sudanese. It is well past time for this conflict to stop,” said Türk.
The war in Sudan has killed at least 20,000 people, but the real toll is probably far higher. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries.
Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and warns it could spread further, putting millions at risk of starvation.
Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh
- The sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people
TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Friday handed down lengthy prison sentences against former officials, including former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, a senior figure in the opposition Ennahda party, on charges of facilitating the departure of militants to Syria over the past decade.
TAP state news agency quoted a judicial official as saying that the sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people.
West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault
- Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada
JENIN: On a torn-up road near the refugee camp where she once lived, Saja Bawaqneh said she struggled to find hope 100 days after an Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank forced her to flee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the north of the territory since Israel began a major “anti-terrorist operation” dubbed “Iron Wall” on Jan. 21.
Bawaqneh said life was challenging and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive, along with Tulkarm and Nur Shams.
“We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,” she said.
“Nothing is clear in Jenin camp even after 100 days — we still don’t know whether we will return to our homes, or whether those homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
Bawaqneh said residents were banned from entering the camp and that “no one knows ... what happened inside.”
Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada.
In early March, it said it had expanded its offensive to more city areas.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above Jenin’s streets blocked with barriers made of churned-up earth.
Wastewater pooled in the road outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Farha Abu Al-Hija, a member of the Popular Committee for Services in Jenin camp, said families living in the vicinity of the camp were being removed by Israeli forces daily.
“A hundred days have passed like a hundred years for the displaced people of Jenin camp,” she said.
“Their situation is dire, the conditions are harsh, and they are enduring pain unlike anything they have ever known.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders in March denounced the “extremely precarious” situation of Palestinians displaced by the military assault, saying they were going “without proper shelter, essential services, and access to health care.”
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps “has not been seen in decades” in the West Bank.
The UN says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the offensive would last several months and ordered troops to stop residents from returning.
Israeli forces put up barriers at several entrances of the Jenin camp in late April, AFP footage showed.
The Israeli offensive began two days after a truce came into effect in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Two months later, that truce collapsed and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza, a Palestinian territory separate from the West Bank.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 925 Palestinians in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry.
