BEIRUT: Twelve murders have taken place at a displaced camp in northeast Syria in just over two weeks, the UN said Thursday, sounding the alarm over an “increasingly untenable” security situation.
Held by Kurdish forces, Al-Hol camp — Syria’s biggest — holds almost 62,000 people, of whom more than 80 percent are women and children, including Syrians, Iraqis and thousands from as far afield as Europe and Asia.
The foreigners are families of jihadists from the Daesh group, which seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The Iraqi and Syrian residents of the camp largely fled subsequent fighting between IS and Kurdish forces.
“Between 1 and 16 January, the UN received reports of the murders of 12 Syrian and Iraqi camp residents,” said the UN statement, adding that an Iraqi woman was among those killed.
“The disturbing events indicate an increasingly untenable security environment at Al-Hol,” it added.
The camp had already witnessed several security incidents in recent months, sometimes involving IS supporters.
These have included escape attempts and attacks against guards or staff employed by NGOs, sometimes with knives, other times with firearms.
The UN statement published on Thursday said that Imran Riza, its Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, and Muhannad Hadi, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, expressed their “serious concern over the deteriorating security conditions” at the camp.
The two UN officials also stressed the “urgent need for durable solutions to be found for every person living in the camp.”
Since the fall of IS’ self-proclaimed caliphate in March 2019 after a US-backed Kurdish offensive in eastern Syria, Kurdish authorities have repeatedly demanded that countries repatriate women and children.
But most countries, especially European nations, are reluctant to take back their citizens. Some, including France, have brought home a limited number of French jihadists and children.
“The recent rise in violence... jeopardizes the ability for the UN and humanitarian partners to continue to safely deliver critical humanitarian assistance,” the UN statement added.
Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011 after the violent repression of protests, quickly spiralling into a multi fronted conflict that pulled in numerous actors, including jihadist groups and foreign powers.
UN says 12 murdered in Syria camp in two weeks
https://arab.news/vrnmq
UN says 12 murdered in Syria camp in two weeks
Hear them out: The best Arab alternative albums of 2025
- Bojan Preradovic’s pick of records released by indie artists from the Arab world this year
Saint Levant
‘Love Letters’
With his sophomore LP, the Palestinian artist matures from viral breakout to more vulnerable, multilingual pop and R&B, shaping a compact set of love songs with a firmly Palestinian center. He braids sleek synths, North African grooves, and earworm melodies into pieces that drift between late-night infatuation and clear-eyed reflections on home, distance, and belonging. “DALOONA,” a collaboration with Shamstep pioneers 47Soul, and “KALAMANTINA,” featuring Egyptian rap star Marwan Moussa, both lean into joyful release, while “EXILE” sits with the emotional cost of separation and absence. “Love Letters” threads romance, memory, and identity into understated, exceedingly replayable art.
Zeyne
‘Awda’
Rising Palestinian-Jordanian star Zeyne uses her debut LP to alchemize the last few years of upheaval and her meteoric ascent into a 13-track map of who she is and where she comes from. Folding contemporary R&B and pop into playful rhythms, dabke pulses, and Arabic melodic turns, she sings of home, pressure, and stubborn hope on tracks that feel both diaristic and cinematic. The record shifts between tenderness, unease, and quiet celebration, while guest appearances from Saint Levant and Bayou mix perfectly with the record’s unique flavors rather than overpowering them. This is an exhilarating, soul-searching foray into Arabic alt-pop that treats vulnerability and pride as two sides of the same coin.
Yasmine Hamdan
‘I remember I forget’
A quietly piercing LP from the indie icon about what we choose to carry and what we try to erase. Recorded with her trusted musical confidant Marc Collin, the album folds muted electronics, trip-hop beats, oud, and Arabic strings into songs in which personal memory, folk echoes, and her country’s never-ending tumult blur into one. Album closer “Reminiscence” lets the record fade like a long-held breath, reminding us that Hamdan is still one of the few artists capable of molding private anxieties into a shared, luminous language.
Kazdoura
‘Ghoyoum’
The Toronto-based duo’s debut weaves a story of migration and fracture into a quietly dazzling Arabic fusion record. Vocalist Leen Hamo and multi-instrumentalist John Abou Chacra root everything in Levantine maqams, then let the songs drift toward jazz, psychedelia, and dream pop without ever losing sight of the tarab they grew up on. From the yearning of opener “Marhaba Ahlen” and the fiery feminist chant of “Ya Banat” to the reworked folk of “Hmool El Safar” and the woozy sway of “Khayal” and “Titi Titi,” they sculpt homesickness, resilience, and slow healing into something genuinely transformative.
Tamara Qaddoumi
‘The Murmur’
On her first full-length album, Tamara Qaddoumi stretches the trip-hop and shadowy pop universe she explored on 2021’s EP “Soft Glitch” into a deeper, intensely moving world. Written with longtime collaborator Antonio Hajj, and produced by indie mainstay Fadi Tabbal, “The Murmer” leans on low-end throb, smoldering synths, and incisive guitar lines that feel both intimate and vast. Her voice hovers between confession and spell, circling questions of identity, grief, and attachment that evoke her own hybrid Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Scottish heritage. The result is a delightfully cobwebby, absorbing LP that lingers long after it ends.
Sanam
‘Sametou Sawtan’
Recorded between Beirut, Byblos, and Paris, “Sametou Sawtan” – Arabic for “I heard a voice” – is a poignant, unsettled collision of noise rock, free jazz, and Arabic folk that fizzes with tension. Produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the eight tracks by the art-rock sextet are anchored by Sandy Chamoun’s remarkable vocals, which move from murmured prayer to visceral intensity, drawing on classical Arabic poetry and prose and her own lyrics to inhabit figures who are bewildered, grieving, or stubbornly alive. From the opening surge of “Harik” to the slow burn of “Hamam,” Sanam distill personal and collective unease into work that’s urgent, physical, and impossible to ignore. This is an act on the precipice of wider, global renown.
Nabeel
‘Ghayoom’
On “Ghayoom,” the Iraqi-American songwriter — real name Yasir Razak — firmly plants the flag of an audacious musical explorer venturing across roads less traveled. He sings in Arabic over a wall of distorted guitars and slowcore drums, enveloped by captivating, shoegaze-colored soundscapes. The artwork, built from worn family photographs, hints at what the music is chasing. These eight tracks pair devotional tenderness with the grit of DIY rock. Opener “Resala” aches with unsent words; “Khatil” hits with uneasy momentum; while the elegant flicker of pop-tinged moments scattered throughout the album maintain a raw and bruised edge.
Malakat
Al Anhar Wal Oyoon
On its first showcase, Jordan-based label Malakat gathers seven Arab woman artists and enables them to pull in seven different directions that end up flowing as a single current. “Al Anhar Wal Oyoon” (‘The Rivers and the Springs’), moves from Intibint’s hauntingly inspired vocalization to Liliane Chlela’s serrated electronics, and from Sukkar and DAL!A’s skewed pop to Sandy Chamoun’s voice-led piece, and Bint Mbareh’s closing track, developed in dialogue with visionary producer Nicolas Jaar. Mixed across Amman, the UK, and New York, and mastered by the highly-sought-after Heba Kadry, this is a deeply textured statement of intent from a label quietly redrawing the map of experimental Arab music.
