Islamic State: The women and children no-one wants
The al-Hol camp in north eastern Syria is an overflowing vessel of anger and unanswered questions. Inside are the lost women and children of the jihadist group Islamic State , abandoned by their men, their nightmare caliphate and their governments.
It is only two weeks since Baghouz, the last of IS-governed territory, fell to Kurdish-led forces. The Kurds had taken their time, allowing ceasefire after ceasefire so that women, children and the injured could leave. The coalition warplanes that killed civilians in Mosul and Raqqa, IS's two lost capitals, were more cautious over Baghouz."In one day, at least 2,000 people were killed," one Iraqi boy who survived the combat, tells me.
Nour's condition needs urgent attention and she is sent to a hospital in the city of Hassakeh. Now the clinic bed is emptied and a new occupant is placed on its black leather surface. What remains inside, no-one wants. A few governments have taken people back: Russia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. The United States has taken back a single woman. The UK has no plan to repatriate fighters or their families. Al-Hol is the camp where Shamima Begum, the teenager from London, was first held and where she learned she had been stripped of her British citizenship. France has taken back a handful of orphans whose parents died fighting for IS.
The western women are wary of speaking inside. They fear being attacked by the more radical women in the camp, if they are seen speaking to a man. If they remove their veils, they are set upon by some of the women. Tents have been burned to the ground in retribution. "I was a half-year in Isis and I asked my father if he can help me to send a smuggler to bring me out. They sent a smuggler but security from Isis, they killed him. And then they catch me also because they find pictures of me on his phone. And then I was locked up first time in prison [in Raqqa] and then a second time in [the village of] Shaafa," she explains.
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