'Really Tired': French ISIS Women Languish in Syria Camp

Amal, from France, needs crutches to get around Al-Hol camp after she was wounded in what was the ISIS group's last bastion in eastern Syria. (AFP)
Amal, from France, needs crutches to get around Al-Hol camp after she was wounded in what was the ISIS group's last bastion in eastern Syria. (AFP)
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'Really Tired': French ISIS Women Languish in Syria Camp

Amal, from France, needs crutches to get around Al-Hol camp after she was wounded in what was the ISIS group's last bastion in eastern Syria. (AFP)
Amal, from France, needs crutches to get around Al-Hol camp after she was wounded in what was the ISIS group's last bastion in eastern Syria. (AFP)

In an overcrowded desert camp for families linked to the ISIS group in northeastern Syria, a French woman begged for another chance so she and her children could go home.

In the same settlement, two other French women were more tepid about the prospect of repatriation, with one saying she feared being separated from her child.

In the squalid camp of Al-Hol, the question of return has sparked a divide among the French wives of ISIS fighters.

"We'd like the French government to give us the chance to make it up to them," 30-year-old Umm Mohammad told AFP in French.

"I think it's better they repatriate us... We'll be judged in France," said the mother of four from Paris, dressed in a black robe and face veil.

After years of fighting IS ISIS Syria's Kurds hold 4,000 women and 8,000 children from families linked to the extremist organization, mostly in Al-Hol.

Inside the camp, a veiled woman pushed a child in a pram, the bottom of her black robe caked in dry mud.

Two boys in jackets and rubber boots dragged a cart over a dirt field beyond rows of white tents, a little girl in a pink coat running alongside.

Umm Mohammad said that among her compatriots in Al-Hol's section for foreigners, "a huge amount want to go home".

"There's another half who don't want to go back, but that's their problem," said the widow, who says her French husband was killed in Hajin, once one of the last bastions of ISIS.

France has so far been reluctant to repatriate its nationals, allowing just a handful of children back on a case-by-case basis.

But in an apparent U-turn last week, Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said she saw "no other solution" but to bring back extremists.

'Never killed'

Kurdish-led forces expelled ISIS from its last patch of territory in eastern Syria in March last year.

The extremists stand accused of a wide range of crimes during their failed five-year experiment in statehood in parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

But Umm Mohammad claimed she "did nothing at all" while living under ISIS.

"I never killed anyone," she said.

"We're really tired. Our children, we'd like them to go back to school."

In the camp's makeshift market, women dressed in black examined piles of colorful clothes laid out on blankets.

A woman carried a tray of white eggs, followed by another balancing a plastic crate of oranges on her head.

Away from the bustle, another French woman lamented the living conditions.

"I don't want to stay in this camp," said 23-year-old Nour, her brown eyes barely visible through the slit of her face veil.

"It's very difficult. We live in tents. It's cold. People are sick."

At least 371 children died in Al-Hol last year, the Kurdish Red Crescent has said, mainly from malnutrition, poor healthcare for newborns and hypothermia.

The Kurdish authorities have warned that conditions could deteriorate further after the UN Security Council on January 10 voted to restrict cross-border aid.

The Yaroubiya crossing on the Iraqi border was a key entry point for UN-funded medical aid reaching the area, including Al-Hol.

'France doesn't want us'

Nour, who said she was from the city of Montpellier in southern France, said she wanted to resume a normal life.

But she insisted she did not want to be separated from her children.

"If they're going to separate us, frankly I don't see the point of repatriating us," she said.

She too claimed she had not carried out any crimes.

"I stayed at home and educated my children," she said.

A third French woman -- who gave her name as Amal -- was more reluctant to speak.

"I having nothing to say," said the 25-year-old, after slowly gliding around the used clothes market on clutches.

She said she was wounded in the leg in Baghouz, a riverside hamlet where die-hard extremists made their last stand in 2019.

She would not reveal the nationality of her late husband and, under her face veil, her brown eyes avoided the camera.

"France doesn't want us... doesn't want ISIS," she said. "I don't want anyone to judge me."



Moving Heaven, Earth to Make Bread in Gaza

Displaced Palestinian girls bake bread at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip - AFP
Displaced Palestinian girls bake bread at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip - AFP
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Moving Heaven, Earth to Make Bread in Gaza

Displaced Palestinian girls bake bread at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip - AFP
Displaced Palestinian girls bake bread at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip - AFP

In Gaza, where hunger gnaws and hope runs thin, flour and bread are so scarce that they are carefully divided by families clinging to survival.

"Because the crossing points are closed, there's no more gas and no flour, and no firewood coming in," said Umm Mohammed Issa, a volunteer helping to make bread with the few resources still available.

Israel resumed military operations in the Palestinian territory in mid-March, shattering weeks of relative calm brought by a fragile ceasefire.

The United Nations has warned of a growing humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the besieged territory, where Israel's blockade on aid since March 2 has cut off food, fuel and other essentials to Gaza's 2.4 million people, AFP reported.
Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow aid in, accusing Hamas of diverting the supplies, a claim the Palestinian militant group denies.

Once again, residents have had to resort to increasingly desperate measures to feed themselves.

To cook a thin flatbread called "saj", named after the convex hotplate on which it is made, Issa said the volunteers have resorted to burning pieces of cardboard.

"There's going to be famine," the Palestinian woman said, a warning international aid groups have previously issued over the course of 18 month of war.

"We'll be in the situation where we can no longer feed our children."

- 'Bread is precious' -

Until the end of March, Gazans gathered each morning outside the few bakeries still operating, in the hope of getting some bread.

But one by one, the ovens cooled as ingredients -- flour, water, salt and yeast -- ran out.

Larger industrial bakeries central to operations run by the UN's World Food Programme also closed for lack of flour and fuel to power their generators.

On Wednesday, World Central Kitchen (WCK) sounded the alarm about a humanitarian crisis that is "grows more dire each day."

The organization's bakery is the only one still operating in Gaza, producing 87,000 loaves of bread per day.

"Bread is precious, often substituting for meals where cooking has stopped," it said.

"I built a clay oven to bake bread to sell," said Baqer Deeb, a 35-year-old father from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

He has been displaced by the fighting, like almost the entire population of the territory, and is now in Gaza City.

"But now there's a severe shortage of flour," he said, "and that is making the bread crisis even worse."

There is no longer much food to be found for sale at makeshift roadside stalls, and prices are climbing, making many products unaffordable for most people.

- 'Mould and worms' -

Fidaa Abu Ummayra thought she had found a real bargain when she bought a large sack of flour for the equivalent of 90 euros at Al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the territory.

"If only I hadn't bought it," the 55-year-old said. "It was full of mould and worms. The bread was disgusting."

Before the war, a typical 25-kilo sack like the one she bought would have gone for less than 10 euros.

"We are literally dying of hunger," said Tasnim Abu Matar in Gaza City.

"We count and calculate everything our children eat, and divide up the bread to make it last for days," the 50-year-old added.

"We can't take it any more."

People rummage through debris searching for something to eat as others walk for kilometres (miles) to aid distribution points hoping to find food for their families.

Germany, France, and Britain on Wednesday called on Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, warning of "an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death".

According to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, displaced people at more than 250 shelters in Gaza had no or little access to enough food last month.

True to their reputation for resilience after multiple wars, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have devised countless ways to cope with growing hardship.

But in interviews with AFP, many said these improvised solutions often make them feel as though they've been thrust back centuries.