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

Nearly 20,000 jihadists, including 2,500 Westerners, are said to be currently detained in makeshift Kurdish prisons.

From our special envoy to Syria, Noé Pignède

For the most part, Kurdish prisons are improvised detention centers. Several dozen jihadists have reportedly escaped since the Turkish offensive in northeastern Syria two months ago.

In one of the largest prisons in the region, which RFI has been able to visit, 5,000 presumed jihadists of 33 different nationalities have been imprisoned for almost a year. But according to its director, who must remain anonymous for security reasons, none of their countries of origin supports the Kurds to secure the prison.

“ Everyone has said in the media that they are going to help us. But for now, we can only count on ourselves, he laments. We keep detainees at the disposal of their country of origin. They must recover them, it is their responsibility. Especially with the Turkish invasion, we had to send a lot of our guards to the front, so we are understaffed. It makes the situation even more precarious . ”

" Time bombs "

To avoid rebellion, the detainees have no information about what is going on outside the prison. None of them is aware of the Turkish offensive, or even of the death of their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“ Our prisoners are time bombs. The slightest information could give them hope, push them to rebel or escape, explains the director. Recently, terrorists detonated a car bomb in front of one of our prisons. Here at night, we often hear shots outside. They are sleeping cells who want to send a clear message to the detainees: ISIS is not dead ”.

Since the fall of the Caliphate ten months ago, no European country has started to recover its jihadists. In France, a repatriation plan had been envisaged by the government but it was finally abandoned. A renunciation that could be expensive because in less than three months, more than a hundred jihadists, including several Westerners, have escaped from Kurdish prisons.