SOHR: Three Iraqis killed in Al-Hol camp

Three Iraqi nationals were killed inside the northeastern Syrian camp of Al-Hol, which houses relatives of suspected jihadists, a monitor said Saturday.

The overcrowded camp in the northern Ar Raqqah region is under the control of the Kurdish administration running the region, but violence – mostly perpetrated by the Islamic State group (IS) – is frequent.

According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a woman originally from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul died of bullet wounds on Saturday.

On Friday, two Iraqi refugees were killed by suspected IS gunmen inside a section of the camp where those who receive threats are usually sheltered, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Al-Hol is home to an estimated 62,000 people, half of whom are Iraqi nationals.

Most of the camp’s residents are people who fled or surrendered during the dying days of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate.

Relatives of suspected foreign IS fighters are held in a separate high-security enclosure.

Al-Hol is rife with IS sleeper cells and weapons, as breakout attempts and attacks on guards, aid workers, and members of displaced families are common.

A massive security sweep of the camp in March led to the arrest of more than 100 suspected IS sympathizers.

Rahman said, “the latest violence could touch off a fresh escalation in the murder rate inside the camp.”

So far this year, 78 people have been killed in Syria’s Al-Hol camp, 58 of them Iraqis, according to the Britain-based war monitor.

The living conditions in the desert camp are dire and many organizations have described Al-Hol as a security and humanitarian time bomb.