The Kurdish-Syrian authorities have announced their intention to release over 20,000 Syrian civilians, related to former ISIS jihadists or from areas long dominated by ISIS, who have been locked up for about two years in a refugee camp on the border with Iraq .
This was stated by Elham al Ahmad, of the Syrian Democratic Council, an institution that governs the semi-autonomous Kurdish-Syrian region and that manages the refugee and prison camps in north-eastern and eastern Syria.
Since 2019, the al Hol camp has hosted tens of thousands of civilians, Syrians but also of other nationalities, displaced from the areas of the Euphrates valley that ISIS controlled from 2013 to 2018.
According to UN estimates, approximately 25,000 Syrians, 30,000 Iraqis and 10,000 of other nationalities remain in the camp.
These are mostly women and children, wives and children of former jihadists, who died in battle or taken prisoner by the Coalition.
In difficult sanitary conditions and in a context of strong social tension, the al Hol camp has been described by many as a "hotbed of radicalization" and as "the last stronghold of ISIS" in Syria.
Isis had been defeated by the US-led international coalition, which includes the Kurdish-Syrian fighters.
The Kurdish-Syrian political administration, which dominates eastern and north-eastern Syria, has long been asking the international community to bear the costs of running the al Hol camp.
"The Syrian Democratic Council and the autonomous administration (Kurdish-Syrian) have decided to completely empty the camp of Syrians, leaving only foreigners," Elham al Ahmad said, quoted by the media.
Previously, the Syrians were released with a dropper after a series of agreements between the Kurdish administration and the Arab tribal clans of north-eastern and eastern Syria, from which most of the Syrian civilians imprisoned since 2019 in al Hol come from.