Syria has an opportunity to empty its 'ISIS camps' for good

As a country in the throes of great change, Syria is a place where threats to stability come in two forms: acute and chronic. Despite the fall of the Bashar Al Assad government last year, the risk of sudden violence is high; on Sunday, thousands of protesters from the Alawite minority took to the streets days after a mosque bombing killed eight people.

There is also a longer-term danger – the fact that an estimated 14,000 to 16,000 Syrians, including women and children, languish in camps such as Al Hol, deep in the Syrian desert. Originally set up by the UN in 1991 to shelter Iraqi refugees fleeing the fallout from the Gulf War, Al Hol was repurposed to hold female relatives of ISIS members and sympathisers, as well as civilians who sought refuge during intense bombing campaigns against the militants in 2018 and 2019. Since then, it has become one of Syria’s most complex humanitarian and security challenges.

Survivors of a Syrian camp for 'ISIS families' seek to rebuild their lives 02:31

Administered by embattled Kurdish-led forces, conditions in Al Hol and similar camps are problematic in the extreme. Hardened foreign and local ISIS adherents are held alongside civilians, including children born there who have never experienced the outside world. The sense of social isolation is profound; as Muzer Al Salloul, executive director of a Syrian NGO called the Stabilisation Support Unit, told The National recently: “The children and women are not guilty of anything, but if the community continues to reject them, they will become vulnerable to recruitment by ISIS.”

Mitigating that risk should be a priority for all those who are invested in Syr