AIN ISSA, Syria: Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria said Sunday they plan to hand 800 women and children, including relatives of militants, to their families in the first such transfer from an overcrowded camp.
The women and children — all Syrians — are living among the dregs of Daesh in the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp, home to nearly 74,000 people including more than 30,000 Syrians.
They will be released Monday and “taken to their families” at the request of local Arab tribes, according to Abd Al-Mehbach, co-chair of the Kurdish administration’s executive council.
It is to be the first in a larger wave of releases that aim to empty Al-Hol of its Syrian residents, he said.
The next batch is expected to follow the Eid Al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hoovered up during a final offensive against the militants by a US-backed Kurdish-led force, thousands of wives and children of Daesh fighters have been trucked into Al-Hol from a string of Syrian villages south of the camp in recent months.
Their numbers have created a major headache for the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration and have sparked concerns that the camp is emerging as a fresh militant powder keg.
But not all of those being released are relatives of Daesh fighters, Mehbache said of the group set to leave Monday.
Some sought shelter at the camp to escape tough humanitarian conditions in areas levelled by months of fighting, he said.
Monday’s group consists of residents from the northeastern city of Raqqa — once Daesh’s de facto capital in Syria — as well as the town of Tabqa, 70 kilometers (43 miles) west, according to Mehbach.
Those among them with suspected links to Daesh will be kept under surveillance by local Arab tribes, who have given guarantees, he said.
“It is the (Kurdish) administration’s duty to its people to play a role in the rehabilitation of these women and children, and their reintegration into society,” he added.
The Daesh proto-state was declared defeated on March 23, following a nearly five-year-long offensive against the group.
Thousands of foreign fighters are being held in Kurdish-run prisons, while their wives and children languish in displacement camps.
Among the hordes of Syrians and Iraqis, some 12,000 foreigners are held in a fenced-off section of the Al-Hol camp, under the watch of Kurdish forces.
Kurdish authorities to release 800 Syrians from Al-Hol camp: official
Kurdish authorities to release 800 Syrians from Al-Hol camp: official
- Their release comes at the request of local Arab tribes
- The women and children - all Syrians- are living among the dregs of Daesh in the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria
US condemns Houthi detention of embassy staff in Yemen. Guterres seeks release of all detained UN staff
- US State Department says the sham proceedings only prove that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people to stay in power
- UN Secretary General says the continued Houthi detention and prosecution of UN personnel is a violation of international law
WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS: The US on Wednesday condemned the ongoing detention of current and former local staffers of the US embassy in Yemen by the Houthi movement.
“The United States condemns the Houthis’ ongoing unlawful detention of current and former local staff of the US Mission to Yemen,” US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
“The Houthis’ arrests of those staff, and the sham proceedings that have been brought against them, are further evidence that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people as a way to stay in power,” Pigott said.
Earlier, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Houthi rebels not to prosecute detained UN personnel and to work “in good faith” to immediately release all detained staff from the UN and foreign agencies and missions.
Guterres condemned the referrals of the UN personnel to the Houthis’ special criminal court and called the detentions of UN staff a violation of international law, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
There are currently 59 UN personnel, all Yemeni nationals, detained by the Iranian-backed Houthis, in addition to dozens from nongovernmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions, he said.
He said a number of them have been referred to the criminal court in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. “There were procedures going on in the court, I believe, today and all of this is very, very worrying to us,” Dujarric said.
The court in late November convicted 17 people of spying for foreign governments, part of a yearslong Houthi crackdown on Yemeni staffers working for foreign organizations.
The court said the 17 people were part of “espionage cells within a spy network affiliated with the American, Israeli and Saudi intelligence,” according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency. They were sentenced to death by firing squad in public, but a lawyer for some of them said the sentence can be appealed.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement Tuesday that one of those referred to the court was from his office. He said the colleague, who has been detained since November 2021, was presented to the “so-called” court “on fabricated charges of espionage connected to his work.”
“This is totally unacceptable and a grave human rights violence,” Türk said.
He said detainees have been held in “intolerable conditions” and his office has received “very concerning reports of mistreatment of numerous staff.” Dujarric said some have been held incommunicado for years.
Dujarric said the UN is in constant contact with the Houthis, and the secretary-general and others have also raised the issue of the detainees with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman and others.
The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and since then they have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.
The November verdict was the latest in the Houthi crackdown in areas of Yemen under their control. They have imprisoned thousands of people during the civil war.
