Hundreds of displaced Syrians leave the al-Hol camp

Hundreds of displaced Syrian citizens are heading towards their hometowns and villages from an overcrowded desert camp in the northeast of the conflict-hit country.

Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official in charge of the displaced in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah said that around 200 people were leaving the al-Hol camp on Sunday, to head back to their villages in the eastern province of Diyar Al-Zour.

 "Most are women and children, with just some men," media outlets quoted the official as saying.

The group was headed back to the villages of Hajin, Shaafa or Baghouz, which had been liberated from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in March.

The majority were civilians with no ties to Daesh, the official said, while a few might have aligned with the militant outfits at the time but today regretted their collaboration.

Ahmad said around 300 people from the camp had already been taken back to the same area last week.

Hundreds of Syrian civilians and Daesh members were being kept at the al-Hol refugee camp, close to the Syria-Iraq border. 

In June, the local Kurdish authorities started sending home Syrian families that had fled their homes during battles against the Daesh militants from the overpopulated camp.

During that month, several hundred women and children had returned to the northern province of Raqqah.

The ongoing evacuations had been put on hold after Turkish military forces and Ankara-backed militants on October 9 launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion of northeastern Syria in a declared attempt to push YPG militants from the border areas.

Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984. The YPG constitutes the backbone of the SDF militant group.

Last month, the United Nations said the Al-Hol camp's population stood at around 70,000 people. These included more than 30,000 Iraqis, some 28,000 Syrians and over 10,000 foreign nationals -- many of them relatives of Daesh fighters being held in detention.

The Kurdish authorities have repeatedly called on Western nations to repatriate their nationals, but they have been largely reluctant, except in a handful of cases.

In recent months, US forces have transported hundreds of Daesh extremists and their relatives from Syrian territories to Iraq in a number of batches.

US forces transfer Daesh families from Syria to Iraq: SANA

US military forces have transported hundreds of family members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorists from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to neighboring Iraq, a report says.

In addition, US forces have until recently been airlifting Daesh terrorists from one place in Syria to another, under the cover of darkness, in order to save them in the face of advancement and territorial gains by Syrian government forces maybe to prevent revelation of their alliance with the Takfiri extremists.

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