For Iraqis Back From Syria, Life On Hold In 'rehabilitation' Camp

JADAA CAMP, Iraq, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd May, 2022 ) :Awatef Massud is longing to reunite with her Iraqi family after years spent in Syria, but first she must do time in a vetting camp to ensure she has no links to militants .

The 35-year-old mother of five fled to neighbouring Syria in 2014 to escape violence at home after the Islamic State group swept across swathes of Syria and Iraq.

For four months now, since her return to Iraq, she has been living in the Jadaa camp, a compound near the northern city of Mosul presented by the authorities as a "rehabilitation" centre for those coming back from Syria.

All the returnees were transferred from Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, which houses displaced families but also relatives of IS militants , including foreign nationals.

Massud is adamant that her husband was killed by IS.

But she admits that her in-laws "were once part of the (militant) group".

"We left (Iraq) because of the terrorism. They (IS) made us leave our houses, they forced those who refused to join them to leave," she said.

Massud spent three years in Al-Hol with her five children.

Two of them are now with her in Jadaa, where they attend a public school, while the other three stayed behind with her in-laws at Al-Hol.

"I am waiting for their return so that I can reunite with my family" in the western Anbar region, she said.

More than 450 families live in Jadaa, a sprawling camp lined with blue tarp tents, where visitors must present an official permit to security guards before they are allowed in.

The camp is located south of Mosul, once an IS bastion before the group was defeated in 2017.