‘Europe’s Guantanamo’ claims 20 more prisoners in January

Twenty people were killed in the notorious Al Hol camp in January, where Daesh members' families are captured and interned in northeastern Syria.

The victims were all reportedly Syrian or Iraqi citizens, and most were killed in their tents or shelters at night.

The refugee camp is controlled by the US-backed YPG dominated SDF. Tens of thousands of women and children have been captured in recent years by the YPG terror group, the Syrian branch of the PKK, and are subjected to harsh treatment in squalid camps meant for the families of suspected Daesh terrorists. 

Despite several reports of human rights groups showing torture and killings by YPG terrorists in the camp, the US maintains its support for the group in the region.

European states have long been criticised for leaving their citizens in the prisoners’ camp that has now been dubbed “Europe’s Guantanamo.”

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, European countries have dramatically slowed repatriation of their citizens languishing in Al Hol.

“Al-Hol will be the womb that will give birth to new generations of extremists,” Abdullah Suleiman Ali, a Syrian researcher focusing on Daesh, said.

Al Hol houses the wives, widows, children and other family members of suspected Daesh militants — more than 80 percent of its 62,000 residents are women and children. 

Although the majority of prisoners are Iraqis and Syrians, it includes some 10,000 people from 57 other countries.

Torture and sexual abuse

A London-based charity, Rights and Security International (RSI), has revealed that the YPG have been systematically torturing their captives, most of them from European countries, without any consequences

Regional experts worry that the inhumane conditions created by the YPG in these camps has put dozens of children at risk of radicalisation, and fear that it may become a breeding ground for future terrorists.

According to the RSI report, an average of 25 detainees have died every month between 2019 and 2020 in the Al Hol camp alone.

There are several camps in the area, and deaths are taking place due to war injuries, malnutrition, severe dehydration, respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and carbon monoxide poisoning from tent heaters, or from tent fires caused by unsafe heating devices.

A European woman in the camps has been quoted in the report as saying: “Last winter three young children burned alive. We saw the bodies of the babies.”