Doctors Without Borders Warns of Lost Generation in Syria’s Lawless Detention Camp Al-Hol
Rampant violence and lawlessness are rife in the Al-Hol detention camp in northeastern Syria. That’s according to Doctors Without Borders, which has a team in the camp where the families of jihadists are being held.
The aid organization warns of the increasing influence of extremist groups in Al-Hol. In addition, she is concerned about the many children growing up there and fears “a lost generation”.
The Al-Hol camp was initially a refugee camp for people displaced in Syria and Iraq. Since the end of 2018, it has been a detention centre for former IS fighters and their families.
The Kurdish authorities run the camp, but the influence of IS has increased. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also warns against this in a report, describing the situation as “a ticking time bomb”.
The terrorist group IS declared the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014 and controlled territory from Aleppo in Syria to Mosul in Iraq. As of 2017, the caliphate began to crumble, first in Iraq and then in Syria. The last piece was conquered in 2019. IS seems defeated, but today the threat has not completely disappeared. Several small cells remain active in Syria and Iraq.
More than 50,000 people live in Al-Hol, according to United Nations figures. This includes 10,000 foreigners, including Europeans and Belgians. In addition, 64 percent of the people in Al-Hol are children.
In 2021 alone, according to Doctors Without Borders, 79 children died in the camp, accounting for 35 percent of all deaths. Some were victims of violent incidents, mostly shootings. In addition, attacks against camp guards or aid workers regularly occur in Al-Hol. Other children died because they did not receive timely help with illness or accidents.
Al-Hol is “a huge open-air prison, where the majority of inmates are children who are often born in the camp, deprived of their childhood and condemned to be subjected to violence and exploitation, with limited access to care, without education and without hope,” said Martine Flokstra. She is responsible for MSF’s operations in Syria.
Médecins Sans Frontières also criticizes the US-led coalition for leaving surveillance of the jihadists to the Kurdish authorities, who have long called on foreign governments to repatriate non-Syrian people in the camps. Doctors Without Borders calls on the international community to “take immediate steps to guarantee the living conditions, protection and basic human rights of the people, especially the children in Al-Hol.
