More than half the population are children, the majority of whom are younger than twelve. Dozens of babies are born each month. All the residents are under indefinite detention, as no plans have apparently been made to prosecute any of them—imagine if Guantánamo were the size of a city, and its inmates were mostly women and children. The United Nations has called Al-Hol a “blight on the conscience of humanity.”
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Jihan met Da’ad, who was also from Homs. Her family, which was not linked to isis, had fled regime air strikes for Raqqa, then kept moving east to escape U.S. bombs. One day, she and her children travelled to visit her parents; they returned home to find that a coalition air strike had blown up their house. Seventeen people were killed, among them her husband and her in-laws. Now she lives in a tent with her daughters, including a nine-year-old who has a blood disorder and requires transfusions to stay alive. Transfusions are performed at a hospital outside the camp, but an emergency furlough from the authorities is maddeningly difficult to obtain, and Da’ad, who works at a grocery in the souk, can’t always afford the treatments. She has appealed to neighbors and to aid organizations in the camp, without success. “I can’t watch my child withering away in front of me day after day,” she said. “This is a prison, not a camp. I don’t know what crime my daughter committed.”
Local authorities did not comment on conditions in the camp. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that the “humanitarian needs at Al-Hol camp are vast and the international response is underfunded,” and noted that the U.S. is “committed to helping the international community address this shared security and humanitarian challenge.”
From the New Yorker:
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