Al-Hol's ISIS-linked families 'not forcibly taken' to Roj camp: Kurdish official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) have begun the transfer of 395 "less dangerous" Islamic State-linked families from a notorious camp in northeast Syria to another facility, a Kurdish official has told Rudaw English – but he denied reports that some of the women and children have been transferred by force.

Families are being moved from al-Hol to Roj camp some 200 kilometers away, Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) office for internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugees told Rudaw English on Tuesday, with 76 families already transferred.

“We began the process on August 15. We did it in batches. We have transferred four batches, so 76 families so far,” Ahmed said, with Roj camp "expanded and prepared" to accommodate for the influx of families.

The detainees being transferred, most of whom are children, are of "many nationalities," Ahmed said. He did not specify what nationalities they held. 

Al-Hol residents were chosen for transfer after relevant authorities monitoring their behavior deemed them to be “less dangerous” than other residents, the Kurdish official said. At Roj, families will each have their own tent and "won't have to wear the black niqab anymore,” the official said.

Al-Hol is home to 68,000 people, most whom are linked to ISIS. About 43,000 of the residents of the camp are children. Before the transfers began, the much smaller Roj camp was home to around 2,000 residents.

The Australia-based The Age news outlet claimed Tuesday that five Australian nationals and 14 of their children held at al-Hol were forcibly taken to Roj at midnight on Sunday night, with "some barefoot and in handcuffs, after their tents were raided and searched and their bedding destroyed.”

News of forced transfers was "disturbing", Mat Tinkler, director of international programs at Save the Children Australia said on Twitter, "with 10 Aussie kids reportedly snatched from their tents, mothers handcuffed, belongings destroyed & no understanding of their whereabouts or wellbeing.” Tinkler echoed calls made by humanitarian organisations and relatives of ISIS-linked detainees for the repatriation of these “innocent kids.” 

Ahmed denied that anyone had been taken from al-Hol by force, instead pointing to schisms between residents still loyal to ISIS and those who have turned their back on the caliphate for the need to transfer people "securely."

ISIS-affiliated women “see al-Hol Camp as their small state and they have courts and security forces," Ahmed told Rudaw English. "They create obstacles [for others to leave the camp]. They beat those families who want to leave the camp, because they believe that if someone leaves the camp they have left their caliphate. So we don't take people out by force, but securely."

Transfers are done at night and at quiet times in the day “for security reasons”, as ISIS-loyal women could use the opportunity to “create chaos”, Ahmed said.

Ahmed challenged international organizations to visit Roj to determine whether transfers were forced or not.

Asked if any of those transferred from al-Hol were Australian nationals, the Kurdish official said that “they could be", but most were from countries formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Most of al-Hol's residents were taken to the camp from Baghouz, the last ISIS bastion in Syria, by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2019. Kurdish and US officials have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their nationals, but few countries have responded to the call.

"We can’t forget that this situation came to be in the first place because of the scandalous attitude of our countries - France and Europe in particular - which must repatriate their nationals, and who leave innocent children to survive in camps, in prisons, and in exile," the United Families Collective (Collectif des Familles Unies), a France-based group of families of individuals who have left for Iraq or Syria told Rudaw English on Wednesday.

Updated at 3:57pm, September 9 2020
Additional reporting by Shahla Omar