Syria: Kurdish forces still detain more than 2,000 relatives of jihadists

Some 2,200 relatives of jihadists of around fifty nationalities are still in a camp in northeast Syria under Kurdish control despite an agreement to integrate Kurdish institutions within the Syrian state. An AFP team which visited the Roj camp on Monday, where there are Russians, French and British people in particular, was able to see women in niqabs, children and adolescents moving among the canvas tents. Some refused to be filmed.

Two official Syrian sources told AFP that the transfer of management of the camp to central power would still take time. “The Roj camp is home to 729 families from Daesh (Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group, Editor's note), or more than 2,200 people,” camp manager Hakmieh Ibrahim told AFP.

“There has been no change in the administration so far,” she added. The camp, guarded by Kurdish security forces, shelters families of around fifty nationalities, according to her, with Russians forming the largest group.

A transfer to Damascus still pending

The French are estimated at around forty families, and the camp also includes relatives of jihadists from Germany, Turkey, and Arab countries including Tunisia and Morocco. “The transfer of his administration will take time,” a Syrian government official who follows the issue of IS fighters and their families said Tuesday.

A Syrian Interior Ministry official, who also asked to remain anonymous, told AFP that the Roj camp “is part of a general problem that we are working on.” The Kurds, who controlled large parts of northern and northeastern Syria during the war, reached an agreement with Damascus in January to integrate their civil and military institutions into the state. The agreement came under pressure from an offensive launched by the forces of Islamist President Ahmad al-Chareh, who wants to reunify Syria after overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.