Experts warn attack on ISIS prison must be a wakeup call for countries to repatriate their citizens

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A global security think-tank has urged the repatriation of foreign citizens held in northeast Syrian (Rojava) prisons on suspicion of affiliation with the Islamic State (ISIS) group, as battle continues in the region, leaving thousands of locals displaced and hundreds of minors trapped in clashes between the terror group and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

As the failure of the international community to take responsibility for nationals within al-Sina’a prison, known to locals as Ghweran prison, in Hasaka province looms large, the Soufan Center think-tank warned on Tuesday that the ongoing conflict in Hasaka must “serve as a wakeup call for countries to repatriate their citizens.”

More than two hundred ISIS fighters broke into the prison on Thursday night, while hundreds of fighters inside the detention facility rioted. For six days, ISIS militants within the prison and its surrounding areas have battled with the internationally-backed SDF, in a conflict that has seen tens of thousands of residents flee.
 
"Last week's prison break is just the most recent reminder that the SDF lacks the manpower and resources to function as prison guards for the foreseeable future," the New York-based organisation warned.

“ISIS has capitalized on its attacks in Syria and Iraq to launch a propaganda offensive, which has mobilized online supporters over the past week,” it added. “Some messages have called for riots and prison breaks in other detention centers where ISIS members and their families are being held, including al-Hol.”

Ghweran prison began housing prisoners after the fall of Baghouz, when ISIS’ so-called caliphate fell and they lost their final territory. The SDF subsequently took responsibility for thousands of ISIS-linked prisoners, with the prison housing between 3,000 and 5,000 inmates since.

Around 700-850 underage prisoners are reportedly in the building, with increasing calls from international bodies to secure their safe release in recent days: “as young as 12 years old,” according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has estimated that some of the boys trapped in the prison are aged just 11 and 12, and 300 of whom are Iraqi or of other foreign nationality. Last year, a HRW report warned that almost 43,000 foreign men, women, and children linked to ISIS were detained in inhuman or degrading conditions in northeast Syria, including 27,500 children: hundreds kept in squalid prisons alongside men. 

In late November, Amnesty Syria issued a report describing the situation of children in al-Hol camp in north-east Syria, including the arbitrary detention of boys as young as 12 years-old, without any evidence of wrongdoing. The human rights organisation described how many had been transferred to detention centers where they were held with adults, and consequently exposed to serious risks - which have been dramatically exacerbated in recent days.

Diana Semaan, from Amnesty Syria, told Rudaw English on Tuesday that this tragedy could have been avoided if governments had repatriated their child nationals from north-east camps in Syria as well as prisons and detention centers, including Ghweran. 
 
“Our main call to governments is to repatriate their national children from north-east Syria camps,” she said. “We all call on the Autonomous Administration to end the arbitrary detention of children.”
 
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) issued a statement on Tuesday, in which it claimed that “the consequences of ISIS are still without the interest and care of the international community.”
 
Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center, said on Saturday that the prospect of a repeat of the attack remains very real, and that the “SDF needs a comprehensive strategy to deal with this threat,” not a kicking of the can down the road by Western powers.
 
Although the United Kingdom continues to refuse to engage with repatriating British adults suspected of involvement with the terrorist group, US and British forces have also been involved in quelling the violence in Hasaka in recent days.
 
"As part of the Global Coalition's collective stabilisation efforts in the region, the UK has provided technical advice and funding for the refurbishment and expansion of detention facilities for Daesh fighters in northern Syria,” a spokesperson for the British government told Rudaw English on Tuesday. 
 
An estimated 12,000 suspected IS members are still held in Kurdish prisons nearly three years on, according the Soufan Center.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday that the death toll of the Ghweran prison break has reached 166, with the SDF reporting that 550 ISIS militants had surrendered themselves to the force.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday added concern for the ongoing detention of children and reiterated its previous warnings about the state of the SDF-run facilities in a statement, stressing that “countries of origin should repatriate their nationals, especially women and children, in accordance with their obligations under international law.”