Syria closes IS-linked Al Hol camp after emptying it

Syrian authorities have closed Al-Hol camp, which long housed relatives of suspected Islamic State group fighters, after emptying the formerly Kurdish-controlled facility, a camp official told AFP on Sunday.

"All Syrian and non-Syrian families were relocated," Fadi al-Qassem, the official appointed by the government to manage Al-Hol's affairs told AFP.

Al-Hol, located in a desert region of Hasakeh province, had been Syria's largest camp housing relatives of suspected IS fighters.

Last month, the government took over the camp from its Kurdish administrators, who had long run it, as Kurdish forces ceded territory and Damascus extended its control across swathes of Syria's northeast.

Since then, thousands of family members of foreign jihadists have left for unknown destinations.

The facility had housed some 24,000 people, mostly Syrians but also Iraqis and more than 6,000 other foreigners of around 40 nationalities.

Qassem said security forces were searching the tents for any remaining families.

Earlier this week, authorities had started evacuating the remaining residents, taking them to a camp in Akhtarin, in the north of Aleppo province.

Some of the families were taken elsewhere, Qassem said, without specifying the location.

"The camp's residents are children and women who need support for their reintegration," he added.

A source in a humanitarian organisation that was active in the camp told AFP: "We evacuated all our teams working inside the camp, dismantled all our equipment and prefabricated rooms and moved them out of the camp".

Last week, the US military said it had completed the transfer of thousands of IS suspects, including many Syrians but also Westerners, to Iraq, after they were held in Kurdish-run prisons in northeast Syria for years.

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the roughly 5,700 transferred detainees "are at risk of enforced disappearance, unfair trials, torture, ill-treatment, and violations of the right to life".

The Kurds had repeatedly urged countries to take back their citizens but most only repatriated a trickle, fearing security threats and a domestic political backlash.