Wives, children of Islamic State fighters: 'A tragedy we can't face

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There are about 60,000 people in the camp, including 2,500 families of foreign fighters of the Islamic State.

Hool Camp is a chaotic, frustrating and dangerous place

Here live the wives and children of foreign fighters of the Islamic State. It is a city of tents, with hundreds of families living around it, surrounded by armed guards, watch towers and barbed wire.

It is a four-hour drive from the vast desert camp of al-Malikiyah to the town of Al-Qamishli, near the Syrian-Turkish border in northeastern Syria.

Inside, women wear black clothes and cover their faces. Some are lonely and silent, but many are seemingly hostile.

In a corner near a small vegetable market, some women were gossiping in the sun, ready to talk to us. They are from Eastern Europe.

I asked them how they got here but they didn't say much. She simply blames her husbands for the decision to travel thousands of miles to join the Islamic State and to live under a government that tortured, killed and enslaved thousands.

He said that his only crime was falling in love with the wrong man.

This is the same story of the wives of Islamic State militants as they try to separate themselves from a government that did not exaggerate its barbarism and motives.

Her husband is either dead, in prison or missing. She is now stuck here with her children.

About 60,000 people live here, including 2,500 from the families of foreign Islamic State fighters. Most of them have lived here since the jihadist group's defeat in Baghdad in 2019

Women speak with caution because they fear that attracting someone can be dangerous, if not deadly. They are not worried about the security guards, they are afraid of other women, hardline women who are still trying to enforce strict Islamic State rules in the camps.

When we got there early one morning, a woman had been killed.

Daily murder

Violence and radicalism in the camp is a major problem for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). SDF is responsible for managing the camps.

The de facto foreign minister of the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, Dr. Abdul Karim Omar, acknowledges that Islamic State still rules Al-Houl. He says hardline women are responsible for most of the violence.

"There are killings here every day. When people don't follow the Islamic State ideology, they burn tents," he said. And she is spreading radical ideas to her children. 

Children from all over the world were brought to Syria to be brought up in the shadow of the Islamic State

And everywhere there are children, children brought up by their parents from Asia, Africa and Europe to be brought up during the Islamic State regime.

They have nothing to work for

As we passed the foreign parts of the camp, some small children started throwing stones at us. One of the windows of the car was broken and the guard in the car barely escaped injury. This is normal here.

The other children are completely inactive, sitting outside their tents and just staring aimlessly around. Many of them have lived unimaginably horrific lives, traveling with their parents as the Islamic State struggled to defend its territories in Iraq and Syria.

Many children have seen nothing but war and have never been to school.

Some have clear scars on their bodies. I saw a boy with one leg amputated and he was walking on a rough and dusty road. Everyone has suffered trauma and loss, and most children have lost at least one of their parents.

"There are killings here every day. If people don't follow the ideology of the Islamic State, they burn tents."

There are regular security checks in the camp to deal with the escalating violence. And much more.

Older boys are also seen as a potential threat. Once they reach puberty, they are transferred to detention centers away from their families.

"They are a threat to themselves and others  when they reach a certain age, so we have no choice these children set up  to rehabilitation centers for  says Dr Omar.

He says he stays in touch with his mothers through the International Red Cross.

‘He grows up every day’ 

To the north of Al-Hul is Rouge, a relatively small camp, home to the wives and children of Islamic State fighters. Violence is less here. Many British women, including Shamima Begum, Nicole Jack and their daughters, live.

The camp is divided by wires

I met a group of women from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, the places with the highest Islamic State recruitment rates in the Western Hemisphere.

A woman has a ten-year-old son. She brought her children to live under the Islamic State and stayed there until the end when her husband was killed.

They have heard that older boys are being separated and they are now very afraid that it could happen to their child.

As he gets older, his mother's anxiety increases. She says  he's getting bigger every day, every day and"I'm sitting here I think maybe one day they will take him away. '

Nearby, their child is playing football with his younger brother and sister. Her father was killed in an airstrike. He tells me that if he is separated, he will miss his mother very much.

Older boys are seen as a potential threat and are moved to safer centers.

Cleanliness is a must here. There are outdoor toilets and bathrooms and drinking water is available through tanks, which all children complain about.

There is a small market in the camp, where toys, food and clothes are sold.

Every month these families receive food packages and clothes for the children. Some live in mixed family units. In the days of the Islamic State, some of these women had the same husband and this relationship still exists because they work together to take care of the children and do the housework.

Destruction, bombing and war 

Many children attend a makeshift school which run by Save the Children

"We hear a lot of stories and unfortunately all of them are negative, but we hope that they will go home and have a normal childhood," said Sarah Rashidan of her Syria Response Office. And stay healthy and safe.

"We've seen a lot of change in behavior. We have seen them depicting destruction, bombing and war. But now they are creating positive images like happiness, flowers and houses.

However, it is not clear how these children will be able to get out of here or what their future holds.

"If it continues like this, we will face a tragedy we will not be able to deal with."

Some Western countries see the wives of Islamic State fighters as a potential security threat.

Many women deny that they are a security risk. Despite this, they are reluctant to talk about the victims of the Islamic State. About the thousands of Yazidi women who were enslaved by this group, or about those who were considered anti-Islamic, or those whom they considered heretics, who were killed or who were killed while fighting against Islamic State.

It is common for women to say that they have not seen any violent Islamic State propaganda.

Despite living in the Khilafah, many show ignorance of beheadings, massacres and genocide by this group. This is nothing new for those who participate in the Islamic State.

They are cut off from the outside world and rarely understand how they are viewed in their home countries. Some European countries such as Sweden, Germany and Belgium are taking back some children and their mothers.

But given the deteriorating conditions in the camps, Kurdish authorities are urging more countries to repatriate their citizens.

"This is an international issue, but the international community is not fulfilling its responsibilities," said Dr. Omar. If it continues like this, we will face a catastrophe that we cannot deal with. "