The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the Syrian Interim Government have reached an agreement about the return of Syrian families residing in al-Hol Camp to their homes, as announced by an AANES official on Tuesday.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Office of Displaced Persons and Refugee Affairs at the AANES’s Social Affairs and Labour Department, said that a joint mechanism has been established for the return of families following recent talks in Damascus involving AANES representatives, Syrian government representatives, and a delegation from the US-led international coalition against ISIS.
Mr Ahmed confirmed that the Autonomous Administration would support anyone wishing to return voluntarily to their home region within Syria, and emphasised the dangers posed by the al-Hol camp, some sections of which house families of ISIS members.
According to sources close to the AANES cited by Medya News, the al-Hol Camp has become a significant burden for the Autonomous Administration, particularly since newly-elected US President Trump cut USAID development funding, from which the al-Hol Camp administration had previously received support.
The source stated that the agreement concerns almost 20,000 Syrian internally displaced persons (IDPs) staying in the camp, and that no ISIS members or their families were included in the deal.
Speaking to Medya News, Bedran Çiya Kurd, a senior Kurdish official, expressed his support for the fact that the agreement did not concern ISIS members or their families held in the camp. He recalled that, even before the fall of the Ba’ath regime in Syria, there had been multiple attempts to reach an agreement regarding these IDPs, but that an agreement could not be reached with the regime.
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