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Kurdish authorities set to release Syrians from camp for IS families

Syrian detainees — mostly women and children family members of Islamic State terrorists — are to be released from the notorious detention camp al-Hol, yet foreigners will remain.
A woman walks past others gathering by the back of a pickup truck at Camp Roj, housing family members of people accused to belong to the Islamic State (IS) group who were relocated from al-Hol camp, in the countryside near al-Malikiyah (Derik) in Syria's northeastern Hasakah province on September 30, 2020. (Photo by Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP) (Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Authorities in northeastern Syria have announced plans to grant amnesty to thousands of Syrians held at a detention camp, mostly women and children, and allow them to return to their families. Al-Hol camp west of Hasakah city houses over 60,000 people, including civilians displaced by the Islamic State’s (IS) war in neighboring Iraq as well as in Syria.

Many are thought to be families of IS fighters. Some of the women actively participated in their self-declared caliphate’s barbaric rule. Others were innocents forced to flee along with the jihadis as the US-led coalition and their Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) partners drove them out of one town after the other, culminating in their defeat at their last stronghold in Baghouz in March 2019.

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