By Feras Dalatey
DAMASCUS, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Fewer than 1,000 families remain at a camp where relatives of suspected Islamic State militants had been held in Syria’s northeast, the camp’s former director said on Wednesday, with thousands having fled last month as government forces seized control of the area from Kurdish-led fighters.
Al-Hol, near the Iraqi border, was one of the main detention camps for relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters who were detained during the U.S.-backed campaign against the jihadist group in Syria.
Control of the camp changed hands last month when government forces under President Ahmed al-Sharaa seized swathes of the northeast from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, including several jails holding Islamic State fighters.
The U.S. military said last week it had completed a mission to transfer 5,700 adult male Islamic State detainees to Iraq.
Jihan Hanna, the former director who still coordinates with international agencies and the Syrian government, told Reuters the remaining families were Syrian nationals and were being transferred to a camp in Aleppo. Most of the camp’s foreign nationals had fled, she said.
The Syrian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the latest camp data obtained by Reuters, dated January 19 – a day before the government took control of the camp – its population was 6,639 families comprising 23,407 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, as well as 6,280 foreigners from more than 40 nationalities.
‘UNREST AND ANXIETY’ IN CAMP
UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, said it had observed “a significant decrease in the number of residents in al-Hol camp in recent weeks,” adding in a statement to Reuters that there were no confirmed figures on the remaining population.
“Over the weekend the camp administration advised UNHCR not to enter the camp due to the unrest and anxiety in the camp,” UNHCR added.
The Syrian government accused the SDF of withdrawing from al-Hol on January 20 without any coordination.
The SDF, in a statement that day, said its forces had been “compelled to withdraw from al-Hol camp and redeploy to areas surrounding cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats.”
A Syrian government security source said most people in the camp fled that day during a five-hour period when it was unguarded, and that some had left with men who came to take their relatives to unknown destinations.
The security source and a source from a non-governmental organisation working there said a section of the camp that housed its most dangerous residents, known as the annex, was empty.
The security source said the escapees had spread throughout Syria and that security authorities, working in cooperation with international partners, had established a unit to “follow up on the matter and pursue those who are wanted.”
Some have left Syria.
In Lebanon, the army has questioned more than a dozen Lebanese who crossed illegally from Syria after leaving al-Hol, a Lebanese security source said.
The Syrian government’s Directorate of International Cooperation said on Tuesday that hundreds of people, mostly women and children, had been transferred from al-Hol to a newly prepared camp near the town of Akhtarin in northern Aleppo.
(Additional reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry, Rod Nickel)
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