In the non-city of ISIS: Al-Hol

A non-city, a refugee camp, an open-air prison. These are the various definitions that have been given to Al-Hol over time, a non-place in northeastern Syria on the border with Iraq. Born in 1991 to host Iraqi refugees fleeing the first Gulf War, Al-Hol has changed its nature and purpose, ending up becoming what some residents, or rather detainees, have described as 'like Guantanamo'.

To understand how the Al-Hol camp has changed, it is necessary to take a step back to 2014 when the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) founded its Caliphate in the territories of Iraq and Syria. These were the years of maximum expansion of the terrorist organization, which attracted thousands of fighters from around the world, including many Westerner countries. It is for this reason that the coalition against ISIS, led by the United States, was formed, which years later would lead to the fall of the Caliphate, the reconquest of territories, and the capture of many ISIS fighters and their families.

The population of Al-Hol, originally composed mostly of Syrians and Iraqis fleeing conflict, saw a huge increase between 2018 and 2019: from about 10,000, it rose to over 70,000. But it's primarily during these years that Al-Hol changes its nature: barbed wire, armed guards, and armored vehicles appeared, and no one can leave this place anymore. From a place originally intended to shelter war refugees, the camp turned into an open-air prison.

Since then, control of the camp has been entrusted to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the coalition of Kurds and Arabs fighting ISIS, while the survival of those detained inside Al-Hol is effectively entrusted to some international organizations distributing humanitarian aid.

Currently, around 40,000 people from various countries are detained inside the camp: the majority are Syrians and Iraqis, but there are also many Westerners who had decided to join ISIS. However, the population of Al-Hol has another fundamental characteristic: more than half of the residents are women and children, many of them under twelve years old. This anomaly is explained by the fact that most of the fighters of the terrorist group, and therefore the men, have been killed or captured, leaving behind wives and ex-wives, whose level of adherence to ISIS often depends on their personal history.

There's a group of women, for example, who have taken on the role of moral police within the camp, punishing those who violate the Caliphate's rules, sometimes by attacking and killing the "offenders." But many of the women in the camp have a personal history marked by violence: some, for instance, were forced to marry ISIS fighters after being raped.

There are also various testimonies from people who say they simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the report by Doctors Without Borders "Between two fires", published in November 2022, several testimonies from Al-Hol residents are collected. For example, there's one person who recounts being arrested by ISIS and, with the arrival of the coalition and the loss of territory by the Caliphate, being accused of being a fighter. Another woman tells of how her husband fled to enlist, taking their daughters with him. For her, there was no choice but to follow him.

The testimonies collected and the visits inside the camp made by various NGOs show how life inside the camp is particularly harsh, putting the future of thousands of children at risk in a place where violence is commonplace. According to Human Rights Watch, which was able to visit the camp last in 2022, the experiences minors are going through could compared to "torture". Furthermore, there's a high risk of raising a new radicalized generation: it must not be forgotten that, while not everyone in the camp has joined ISIS, ISIS propaganda spreads quickly through the streets of Al-Hol, along with perpetual insecurity, murders, and violence.

For these reasons, and especially due to the risk of radicalization, over the years many have pointed to repatriation of foreign citizens to their countries of origin as one of the few solutions to the problem of the Al-Hol camp. However, the procedures have been very slow, both because of the reluctance of several Western states to accept the return of individuals considered sympathetic to ISIS, but also because of the fear of various detainees to go back home. This is especially the case for Iraqi citizens, who upon return face discrimination and struggle to reintegrate into society, even if they have not had direct ties to the Islamic State.

The Al-Hol camp thus seems to be a non-place where thousands of people have been forgotten, serving a life sentence without having undergone due process. A black hole in which the memory of the terror of the Caliphate is confined, where children, sometimes referred to as "ISIS children", are marked from birth to have no future.

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Translated by Stefania Errico