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The jihadist prison camps in northeastern Syria are full of terrorists living in difficult conditions. RFI / Thibault Lefébure

In the prisons where thousands of jihadists are imprisoned, Syrians, Iraqis, but also thousands of Westerners, are waiting to be fixed on their fate, but for the moment, no body to try them has been put in place. Report on the miserable conditions in which these imprisoned jihadists live.

With our special envoy to Syria, Noé Pignède

In northeastern Syria, 20,000 suspected jihadists are still being held in prisons of the Syrian Democratic Forces, this coalition of Arab-Kurdish militias supported by the West in the war against the Islamic State (IS).

In an old school transformed into a prison, thousands of jihadists are crowded into old classrooms. A smell of grime mixed with excrement floats in the frozen air. Several detainees have died in recent weeks due to lack of food and medicine.

" I'm afraid for my life "

Barefoot, in an orange jumpsuit, his body emaciated, Abdellah Nouamane has been detained here for 10 months. " Maybe we'll be stuck here forever," he says. I do not know. I'm afraid for my life. I am very seriously injured. I became diabetic, but they haven't given me insulin for a week. I need to be operated on in Belgium or in Europe ”.

► (Re) listen: Decryption: What to do with the 10,000 jihadists detained by the Kurds in the north of Syria?

Like all prisoners, this Belgian jihadist says he has no blood on his hands. Left to make the jihad in 2013, the young man, had called in a propaganda video to carry out attacks in Europe, and justifies the crimes of the organization Islamic State.

" The two camps were fighting and killing each other, " he said. Thousands of women and children of Daesh [Arabic for Islamic State] are dead. Trump said you have to fight fire with fire. Daesh replied: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. When there is war, one loses, the other wins. And now we are prisoners of war. Of course, I know that to say that I regret, that I want to return is easy, but our countries must make us return ”.

For the moment, European countries categorically refuse to repatriate their jihadists. The British government has even decided to deprive them of their nationality. Kurdish forces demand that they be tried on their soil, by an international tribunal.

► Read also: The Drian in Iraq to negotiate the transfer of French jihadists from Syria