A fire in a camp housing families of ISIS members killed three children and injured 15 others in northeast Syria, the UN children’s agency said Sunday.
UNICEF called for the safe reintegration and repatriation of all children in al-Hol camp and across the northeast of Syria following the fire the day before.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire that burnt several tents in the sprawling al-Hol camp, which has witnessed a sharp increase in crimes in recent weeks.
Al-Hol houses the wives, widows, children and other family members of ISIS militants — more than 80% of its 62,000 residents are women and children. The majority are Iraqis and Syrians, but it includes some 10,000 people from 57 other countries, housed in a highly secured separate area known as the Annex.
Hundreds of other teenagers are held in prisons for former membership in ISIS.
“Children in al-Hol are faced not only with the stigma they are living with but also with very difficult living conditions where basic services are scarce or in some cases unavailable,” said UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Ted Chaiban.
More than 22,000 non-Syrian children are stranded in al-Hol, in addition to thousands of Syrian children.
