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العربية
Yesterday, Sunday, the Syrian authorities announced the official closure of Al-Hawl camp, after evacuating its last residents, following years of housing families linked to members of the “ISIS” organization.
The camp director, Fadi Al-Qasim, said in a statement to Agence France-Presse that the camp was completely closed, confirming the transfer of all Syrian and non-Syrian families, and indicating that the government had developed development plans and programs to reintegrate these families away from media coverage.
At the height of its existence, the camp included about 24,000 people, including about 15,000 Syrians, in addition to about 6,300 foreign women and children from 42 nationalities, the majority of whose countries refused to return them. However, the number of residents has declined significantly over the past weeks.
Local sources reported that most of the foreigners left the camp after “SDF” withdrew from it in late January. Following this, the Syrian security forces took over the management of the camp as part of their deployment in large areas of the north and east of the country that were under the control of “SDF”, before reaching an agreement stipulating the gradual integration of military and administrative forces into Al-Hasakah Governorate.
Al-Qassem, who is in charge of managing the camp’s affairs by the government, pointed out that the women and children who were residing there needed intensive psychological and social support to ensure their reintegration into society.
In a related context, the Undersecretary of the Iraqi Ministry of Immigration and Displacement, Karim Al-Nouri, said that about three thousand Iraqi citizens are still inside Al-Hawl camp, pointing out that about 1,200 of them do not wish to return to Iraq because they are wanted by the authorities.
A source in one of the humanitarian organizations that was active inside the camp confirmed the evacuation of all its working teams, the dismantling of prefabricated equipment and rooms, and their transfer outside the site.
According to the agency, last Tuesday, the Syrian authorities began transferring the remaining camp residents to another camp near the city of Aleppo in the north of the country, after the bulk of foreigners left during the past weeks to unknown destinations, in circumstances whose details are not yet clear.
