ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) have not discussed handing over control of camps housing families of Islamic State (ISIS) members to the Syrian interim government with either Washington or Damascus, a senior Rojava official told Rudaw late Friday, days after the US embassy in Syria appeared to back such a transfer of control.
The embassy said in a post on X on Tuesday that Washington “commits to a responsible transfer operation for managing” camps in Rojava to the interim Syrian government. The post was later deleted, but a screengrab of it was shared by Charles Lister, director of Middle East Institute’s Syria program.
Rudaw English reached out to the US embassy in Ankara, which oversees the American mission in Syria, for clarification on the deleted post on Saturday but did not receive an immediate response.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, who supervises northeast Syria’s camps for the displaced, told Rudaw English that he saw the embassy’s statement and denied any plans to give up control of the camps that house around 40,000 people with alleged ties to ISIS.
“What they shared is not true. A few days ago, we transferred some families from al-Hol camp to Aleppo city, which is under the control of the interim government of Damascus,” Ahmed said.
He added that the US funds humanitarian organizations to transfer the families.
“These camps will not be handed over to the [Syrian] government. The US and the Damascus government have nothing to do with these camps. The Damascus government is only allowed to receive their people and the US can provide assistance in this regard through their humanitarian organization,” he said. “There has been no discussions on the handover.”
There are several camps in Rojava housing displaced people. The main ones are al-Hol and Roj.
Conditions in al-Hol camp are poor and draw frequent criticism from international monitors. Human Rights Watch said in a report in February that people held in the camp face an uncertain future.
“People detained unlawfully in al-Hol and Roj camps should not be left to languish forever,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Their dire situation needs to be included in discussions about Syria’s future, and the fragility of the situation in Syria should push countries to repatriate their nationals with even greater urgency.”
Weeks after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Rojava authorities announced that Syrians held in al-Hol camp could voluntarily return to their homes. In May, Ahmed said they had reached an agreement with Damascus to “establish a joint mechanism for evacuating Syrian families from al-Hol camp and returning them to their original areas.”
The return of Syrians displaced by the conflict was also part of a landmark agreement signed in March between Rojava and Damascus.
“Ensuring the return of all displaced Syrians to their towns and villages and ensuring their protection by the Syrian state,” reads the agreement, though it does not mention control of Rojava’s camps.
Nearly half of al-Hol’s population is Iraqis. Baghdad is repatriating its nationals in groups of several hundred at a time, putting them through a rehabilitation program before they can return to their home regions.
There are also a significant number of other nationals in the camps. The Iraqi government will hold a conference in Geneva in September to encourage countries to repatriate their citizens from the camp, Iraq’s national security advisor announced earlier this month.
Rojava and US officials have repeatedly called on countries to repatriate their nationals.
