TRIPOLI,
Lebanon — For
three years, Umm Mohammed Iali has been longing to embrace her granddaughters
stuck in
Syria since her two sons died fighting for Daesh there.
اضافة اعلان
Like thousands of other relatives of
Daesh fighters, the three Lebanese girls and their mother are being indefinitely held
in the northeast Syrian camp of Al-Hol.
Sitting in her grandchildren’s bedroom in
her home in the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, tears stream down Umm
Mohammed’s face.
“I have been telling myself they will come
back today, they will come back tomorrow — every day for the past three years,”
the 50-year-old said.
“I even prepared the bedrooms for their
return,” she said, surrounded by heart-shaped pillows and star-speckled walls.
Her oldest granddaughter is 10 and the
youngest, born in Syria, is only four.
The Ialis are among dozens of
Lebanese families demanding Beirut repatriates their relatives stuck in overcrowded
camps like Al-Hol.
Al-Hol shelters around 56,000 displaced
people, including refugees from multiple nations, according to the UN. Most
fled or surrendered during the dying days of Daesh’s self-proclaimed
“caliphate” in March 2019, and around half the camp residents are Iraqis.
Daesh in 2014 seized large swathes of Iraq
and Syria, ruling its territory brutally until its defeat by local forces
backed by a US-led coalition.
The Daesh extremists continue to perpetrate
violence in Al-Hol, and the UN has repeatedly warned of deteriorating security
conditions there.
Living
in ‘misery’
Since
the fall of Daesh,
Syria’s Kurds — who run a semi-autonomous administration in
northeast Syria — and the UN have urged foreign countries to repatriate their
Islamist extremist-linked nationals.
But this has only been done in dribs and
drabs, as countries fear a backlash domestically, both in terms of the reaction
of their citizens and the risk of future attacks on their soil.
Umm Mohammed’s Sunni majority hometown,
Tripoli, has long been a hotbed for extremists fighting against regime forces
in
Syria’s civil war. Hundreds of young Tripoli men have joined extremists and
opposition groups there since the war began in 2011.
Their wives and children often followed
them.
Mohammed Iali’s widow Alaa, 30, is one of
those women. Her husband was killed in 2019 during the battle to take Daesh’s
last bastion in Baghouz, Syria.
Despite the defeat of the “caliphate” that
year, the extremists are believed to have recruited dozens of Lebanese men to
join their ranks since last summer.
A security official has told AFP that
“financial motives” are the main attraction for the youth of Tripoli, one of
the poorest places in a country suffering a
financial crisis that has left more
than 80 percent of the population living in poverty.
At least eight Tripoli men have been
reported killed in Iraq since December.
After fleeing Baghouz, Alaa was moved to a
high-security annex at Al-Hol.
“All I want is for this woman and her girls
to come back,” said Umm Mohammed, whose dream is to hold her granddaughters
tightly.
“I live only for them.”
She told AFP that their tents in the camps
fill with muddy rainwater every winter.
“They live in misery, deprived of
everything.”
Since Alaa arrived in Al-Hol her father,
Khaled Androun, managed to meet with her and his granddaughters twice but could
not secure their release.
His daughter later tried to flee with
smugglers but a landmine exploded during her escape, leaving her wounded, he
said.
Androun said the girls need access to education, medical
attention, and psychological help.
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