“Al-Hawl mini-state” in January 2022 | Four murders…ongoing security chaos…evacuation of 22 families under SDC initiative
SOHR appeals to the international community to find an immediate and lasting solution for Al-Hawl camp's crisis and urges putting a serious plan for rehabilitating the camp’s children and women.
The successive incidents at al-Hawl camp in the far south-east region of Al-Hasakah are now an unrefuted evidence of the chaos recently unleashed by the Islamic State in Syria. Al-Hawl refugee camp has become more like a “mini-state” hosting ISIS-affiliated members and families. A true crisis that most countries of the world still ignore in order to avoid repatriating their unwelcome citizens who joined the notorious organisation. Chaos and lack of security are prevalent within the camp, turning it into a “ticking bomb” that cannot be ignored.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) tracked and monitored the key developments in the camp in January 2022.
As security chaos continues in Al-Hawl camp, SOHR activists could document four murders committed by ISIS cells in the camp in January, which left four people dead: two Iraqi refugees, a displaced Syrian man and a medic in a service post in the camp.
SOHR documented 84 murders in Al-Hawl camp in 2021, which left 89 people dead. Here is the breakdown of fatalities in 2021:
- Two members of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish).
- 67 Iraqi refugees, including three children and 19 women.
- 20 Syrian people, including two children, six woman and the head of the “Syrian Council” in the camp.
In January 2022, 22 families of nearly 217 people left the camp as a part of the initiative by “Syrian Democratic Council” (SDC) to evacuate Syrians from Al-Hawl camp, where these families were transported to Deir Ezzor province.
In 2021, over 780 Syrian families of more than 2,890 people left Al-Hawl camp in batches under the SDC initiative.
On January 8, 113 Iraqi families were evacuated from Al-Hawl camp in Al-Hasakah countryside. After coordination with the Iraqi government, where buses and trucks were seen heading to the Syria-Iraq border in the evening.
We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), renews our appeal to the international community to find a lasting solution to “Al Hawl mini-state” crisis, which is considered a clear and present danger to everyone. We also urge international human rights organisations to put an immediate and serious plan for rehabilitating women and children in the camp, who were saturated with ISIS ideology, especially with the large number of children and the widespread presence of the group cells in the camp that continue to impart their poisonous ideas to the residents of the camp, particularly women and children.
