At least 14 people have been killed since early 2021 in the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, which is home to families of jihadists from the Islamic State group (IS or Daesh). Three of the victims died by beheading, specifies the local official who reveals this hecatomb.
“So far, 14 people have been killed in al-Hol camp since early 2021,” said the latter, Cheikhmous Ahmed, head of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in charge of displaced persons. In addition to “three beheadings”, he mentions executions by shooting using weapons equipped with “silencers”.
Among the victims, all residents of the camp, are ten Iraqis and four Syrians, specifies the official, who points to “the IS cells in the camp”. These target “those who cooperate with the administration”, with the aim of “sowing chaos and fear”, explains Cheikhmous Ahmed.
62,000 people from 57 countries
The United Nations has repeatedly warned against security threats in this camp held by Kurdish forces, which hosts some 62,000 people from 57 countries, more than 80% of whom are women and children according to the UN. The wife of the French jihadist Walid Othmani, who was a priori deceased, Souad Benalia, born in 1984 in Roanne (Loire), escaped in January.
Other French women had also managed to escape. Perhaps even Hayat Boumeddiene, companion of Amedy Coulibaly, the author of the deadly hostage-taking of the Hyper Cacher at the Porte des Vincennes in 2015. In addition to the Syrians and Iraqis who fled the fighting that ended In the self-proclaimed ISIS “caliphate” in 2019, the camp is home to thousands of foreign women and their children – families of jihadists from Europe and Asia.
A humanitarian source recently spoke of tribal tensions behind some of the killings. At the end of January, the UN had reported 12 murders to Al-Hol, sounding the alarm on “an increasingly untenable security environment”.
A camp perceived “as the last vestige of the caliphate”
“Cases of radicalization, training, fundraising and incitement to external operations have been reported,” warned the UN in early February in a new report on ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
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“Some detainees perceive al-Hol as the last vestige of the caliphate,” the report said, according to which around 10,000 foreign women and children live in an annex reserved for them.
“Some minors would be indoctrinated and prepared to become future combatants (of Daesh Editor’s note)”, warns the report. “The number of goalkeepers has dropped from 1,500 in mid-2019 to 400 at the end of 2020.” The Kurdish authorities regularly call on the countries concerned to repatriate women and children.
However, most countries, especially European countries, are reluctant to take back their citizens. Some, including France, have repatriated a limited number of children orphaned by jihadists.
“These children and women are living in what can only be described as horrific conditions of subhuman beings. And we express our concerns that the threshold of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law may have been reached in these camps, ”according to a United Nations expert, calling on the countries of which they are nationals to repatriate them as quickly as possible.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr