ROJ CAMP, Syria — This isolated detention camp doesn't look like it would be a legacy of the once-powerful militant group ISIS. Children play in the bare spaces between tattered tents. A boy kicks a soccer ball. A little girl covered head to toe in an all-enveloping cloak furiously peddles a bicycle.
The camp is located in one of the last parts of Kurdish-held territory in Syria. For years, the issue of ISIS families has been an intractable problem. This January, it became a pressing danger as forces commanded by the new Syrian government advanced, leaving a security vacuum in parts of the region. Kurdish officials say it has sparked a resurgence of the ISIS militant group at the same time that U.S. forces have withdrawn.
With children making up the majority of camp residents, it is also a pressing humanitarian issue.
"I'm struggling a lot. I'm really scared for my situation, for my son's situation as well," says Hoda Muthana, one of three American women in the camp that authorities say are detained here. "I'm just very desperate to get out of here."
Muthana, 31, was born in New Jersey, the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat. The U.S. government revoked her citizenship after she was detained in Syria, saying she should never have been issued the American passport she travelled on.
In 2014, ISIS, one of the world's most violent militant groups, took over huge parts of Iraq and Syria. More than 50,000 foreigners flocked to the Islamic caliphate it declared from its base in the Iraqi city of Mosul. The group made its last stand in Syria after being pushed out of Iraq by U.S. and Iraqi forces. In 2019, U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces took back its last remaining territory. Fighters who were not killed in the final battle in Baghuz, Syria, were imprisoned and their families detained.
Beheading threats
The main camp for ISIS families, al-Hol, shut down in February amid fighting between Syrian government forces and Syrian Kurdish fighters. Residents either escaped or were transferred to other facilities.
But Roj camp has remained in territory still held by Kurdish-led forces who broke away from Syrian regime control in 2012 and now face being incorporated into Syria's Arab-led federal government.
"There was a huge impact after what happened in al-Hol," says Chavare Afrin, the nom de guerre of the head of security at Roj Camp. Like most fighters, she does not use her given name for security reasons and the threat of revenge by ISIS.
She says ISIS followers in the camp packed their bags, believing they would be rescued by elements of the new Syrian government. President Ahmed al-Sharaa is a one-time al-Qaeda commander who renounced the ideology before taking power. And a substantial number of Syrian government security forces are Sunni Muslim former fighters with Islamist militant groups.
"They told us that before they leave they were going to behead all the security people," in the Kurdish-run camp, says Afrin.
She says camp security was not breached because, unlike al-Hol, which was surrounded by Arab villages which helped with escapes, Kurds form a majority of the area where Roj is based.
Australians try to leave
In February, a group of Australian women and their children obtained passports and were allowed by the camp to leave. They were turned back at a Syrian government checkpoint and with nowhere to go, returned to Roj camp.
"It was an exceptional case because the family members approached us and said they had discussed with the Australian government and they managed to get temporary passports for their family members," says Mila Ibrahim, co-chair of the camp administration. "This is why, based on humanitarian reasons, we said since they have the passports it's fine to take them."
One of the women, who refuses to give her name on advice of the group's lawyers in Australia, says she and her children had dreamed of the day they would be able to leave.
"Every night when we put them to sleep, we tell them that one day it will be our last night here. And that night came and we picked our kids out of bed. We got them dressed. We took them, we left," she says, standing outside a tent and dressed in a pale purple cloak.
She did not want to give her name because she and others had been advised by lawyers in Australia not to speak to media.
She says there were 11 women and 18 children. As they left the desolate camp and passed farm fields, she says her daughter, born in the camp, gulped in the air through the open window of their vehicle.
"She was just swallowing the air. She says 'Mum, it's so sweet' and then she sees a house for the first time … and then the car stops and we're turned around, and then how do you explain to a 6-year-old that you're going back?" she says.
A Syrian government checkpoint turned the convoy back, saying their departure had not been coordinated with the Syrian government. When the story broke, Australia's government called the families a potential security risk and said it won't help them return.
Prepared to face justice at home
The breakaway Kurdish-led region in Syria did not have an internationally-recognized justice system, and none of the foreign camp residents or prison inmates accused of being ISIS fighters have been charged with any crime.
The Australians and other detainees asking to be repatriated say they are prepared to face justice in their home countries.
Almost all the roughly 2,300 residents of Roj are foreigners. About 60% of the camp residents are children, according to Save the Children, one of the few aid groups still operating there. The camp is made up of rows of tattered plastic tents pitched on bare earth.
The camp is entirely dependent on aid, disrupted after cuts by USAID last year and again by fighting between Syrian and Kurdish forces this February.
NPR was allowed by camp authorities to spend just two hours at Roj, not enough time to visit the section which holds what guards say are the more radicalized women and children.
While some of the women who came here willingly embraced ISIS ideology and passed it on to their children, many others say they were trafficked or lured to the region through ignorance or under false pretenses.
Home schooling in a detention camp
It's Ramadan when we visit, the holy month when many Muslims fast during the day. Most of the women are resting in their tents. But the section we are in is full of curious and friendly children — many of them home schooled by their mothers. The families here are from almost 60 countries, according to camp officials.
One little girl runs out of a tent holding a painting she made with a brightly painted flower. On the back is written, "Hello friends."
Many of the women try to home-school their children despite a lack of internet or school books.
"It's a constant battle of keeping him close with me and allowing him to just be a kid. It's really difficult," says Muthana of her son Adam. "I've kept him away from people who keep basically their ideology and basically teach their kids to end up spreading this ideology amongst other kids."
Muthana says if she is allowed to return to the United States, she would try to help de-radicalize young people.
"My goal is to help younger people, teenagers out there who are falling for this ideology, wake up and realize that it's not the truth - that it's not the real version of Islam," she says.
The United States and other countries have helped to fund the camps for ISIS detainees, but have no involvement in the running of the camps. Older teenage boys have been transferred out as they get older. With insufficient de-radicalizations programs, some have been placed in prisons with adult ISIS suspects.
From a detainee population that once topped tens of thousands, only Russia, Kazakhstan and some other eastern European countries have repatriated large numbers of their nationals among the ISIS families.
The U.S. had relatively few numbers of citizens joining ISIS. European countries have taken back anywhere from a few dozen or a few hundred, in the case of France.
Authorities from what had been until recently the autonomous Kurdish-led region of northeastern Syria have called for years for other governments to take back the detainees.
"We did your duty, we managed to bring them to this stage, and now it's their duty for all the countries to bring back their citizens," says Afrin, the Kurdish head of camp security.
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