The woman told the aid workers that it was an accident. Her 14-year-old daughter slipped and fell, and nothing could be done. But the body was telling another story. The girl's neck was broken in three places, doctors said, her eyes died, her lips opened, she licked her lips, and she struggled to catch her breath. The photo and medical reports indicate that she was beaten on her body, and then strangled. It was murder, not slipping and falling.
The girl was of Azerbaijani nationality and lived with her mother until recently under ISIS. She faced members who had taken control of parts of the Houl refugee camp in northeastern Syria over the past few months, according to camp residents. They said she tried to do without the niqab.
Half a year after the Islamic State lost much of its territory, the camp became a cauldron of extremism. About 20,000 women and 50,000 children lived under the Islamic State's camp in difficult conditions in the camp, which is protected by Kurdish forces backed by 400 US troops. Given that ISIS fighters have been locked up elsewhere, women have reimposed ISIS laws on anyone deemed uncommitted by beating and other brutal tactics, enforcing what camp residents and authorities say is the rule of terror.
Many guards have been stabbed by women who hide kitchen knives in their long clothes. Some women in the camp are threatened because of their relationship with lawyers working to get them out of the camp or because they have spoken to others. A pregnant Indonesian woman was killed, medical officials said, apparently after speaking to Western media. Photos of her body indicate that she was whipped.
Fourteen people with first-hand knowledge of camp conditions described in an interview the extent of anger, violence and rising extremism in the camp. These include residents, aid workers, and Kurdish officials who declined to be identified for security reasons.
Kurdish security officials linked to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces say they have soldiers to protect the camp and nothing else. "We can contain women, but we can't do anything about the ideology they hold," a Kurdish security official said.
In a report published last month, the Pentagon's inspector general, citing information from the US-led coalition to fight ISIS, warned that the SDF's inability to provide little security in the camp allowed IS to spread its ideology.
Near one of the camp's doors, guards collected homemade toy weapons and other tools from ISIS days that children used to play. Toy weapons were made of water pipes and firmly attached to adhesive tape. The banners were colored in clear detail, hanging on wooden pieces showing that they were made by children. "It is clear that the children of the camp need help," said a security official at the camp. "How can we prevent them from becoming what their parents were?"
The conditions of the camp were desperate because of the severity of the bad. Sewage was leaking into the tents where the camp's residents lived. The drinking water tank used by camp residents was full of worms. Many women did not know what happened to their husbands, or their teenage children, when they were arrested by the SDF, which was able to defeat ISIS, and is now guarding the camp and its prisons.
Since the beginning of this year, when the camp was able to accommodate about 10,000 people, the camp began to expand rapidly. Many women and children were moved to the camp after the last ISIS stronghold in the village of Bagooz fell to the SDF with the support of the US military.
The population is being segregated on the basis of their nationality. Arabs, Asians, Africans, Europeans and others. The guards enter this area with caution and concern, as they came under a surprise attack that resulted in the injury of one of the guards broken bones.
A relative of a European woman locked up in the appendix with her three children described her as more fearful than ever. The woman changed her tent several times after a group of Tunisian and Indonesian women began threatening her after learning that her family's lawyer was trying to bring her home, her relative said. "They threaten other women who have either spoken and announced that they no longer support ISIS or that they are trying to return home," the woman's relative said.
Two doctors from the neighboring city of al-Hasakah said patients at the camp were refusing to come to medical facilities run by Kurdish authorities or international organizations. "They told us they can't come," one said. "They say that if we go back to you, the militants will hit us or maybe worse."
Indeed, this threat is not confined to the Hul camp. Aid workers in the small Rouge camp, about an hour's drive from the Hul camp, described the conflicts between the Iraqi population and other foreigners as violent. In one example, an Iraqi woman was barred from contacting her neighbors after she removed the face cover, and ISIS children tried to burn a young Iraqi child alive.
As the situation worsens, camp residents feel they live in a maze. Some women want to return home, but few foreign governments seem interested in recovering them, fearing they pose a threat and the evidence that can be brought against them may not be accepted by the court. The SDF says it is unreliable to keep the camp residents indefinitely. But neither the United States, which controls this piece of land in Syria, nor the European allies or Iraq has offered a viable solution.
"Because ISIS had female combat units who were taught how to spread the ideas of ISIS when they return home, they pose a significant threat to their communities, and their children may also be a threat," said an Arab security official.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have yet to be recovered, and other governments have recovered in very small numbers. Eight US citizens were returned to the United States in June. US President Donald Trump has urged European countries to "reclaim" and prosecute their citizens. A European intelligence official said their recovery should be "realistic" and "case by case," adding: "We have to study who is this woman married to?" What role did it play within ISIS? Is it willing to give up this ideology?
But aid organizations insist that the international community does not have much time, and talked about the dangers that the Hul camp poses to children trapped in it.
The children of the camp .. deep damage and violence
Staff from Save the Children, the largest organization working with children in camps in northern Syria, say they see many signs of deep damage to children. Boys are particularly particularly aggressive, while girls face the prospect of early marriage and sexual violence. "Children who have suffered damage as a result of living all these hardships need more than the camp can offer them," said Sonia Khoush of the Syrian branch of Save the Children. "It's not just about not going to school, it's about violence against children and women," she said. Camp residents talk about seeing beheadings they saw before they came to the camp.
In interviews, some women said they were unconvinced of the ideology of ISIS;
In a video posted last July on the Internet, completely covered women appeared to say they were sending a message from the Hul camp. One of them said, "Brothers, ignite the fire of jihad and liberate us from these prisons." Then the woman went to what she called "enemies."