Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s ministry of migration and displaced, said that Baghdad has reached an agreement with the UN on the repatriation of Iraqis from al-Hol. According to the agreement, no Iraqi families will remain in the camp by 2027.
“There were three proposals for their return: 2025, 2027, and 2030. Next year was too short of a duration and we would not have been able to return them by then, and we told them that 2030 is too far away and their children will grow up so we will not able to accommodate them,” Abbas told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir.
Iraqis and Syrians make up the majority of the 40,000 ISIS-linked people who have been held at al-Hol camp in northeast Syria’s Hasaka province since the defeat of the terror group in 2019. The camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism.
Iraqi National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji in March said that around 20,000 Iraqis below the age of 18 are still at al-Hol. He described them as “time bombs.”
Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their nationals from the camps, but their calls have largely gone unanswered as most countries are unwilling to bring back their citizens due to security concerns.
The repatriation of ISIS-linked citizens has sparked opposition in Iraq, with tribes unwilling to accept and welcome people associated with the group that committed heinous human rights abuses and war crimes from 2014 to 2017, when they controlled vast swathes of the country.
Most repatriated individuals are resettled in al-Jada camp in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, to be prepared for reintegration into their communities and then returned to their hometowns.
