Syria: aid workers at risk in Al-Hol camp, following murder of medic

As a rule, every non-Muslim group and individual faces a threat in the presence of jihadists, and the greater the number of them, the greater the likelihood of violence. “The camp is controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration”, and last year, the Syrian Observatory “recorded 91 murders by IS in Al-Hol, with most of the victims Iraqi refugees. Two of the victims were aid workers.”

A couple years ago, women at the al-Hol camp unleashed a reign of terror on innocent people by enforcing the Islamic State’s laws upon the population, including constant threats of decapitation, plus actions such as “slaughtering babies and dousing guards in petrol,” and not only guards, but other women, too.

Also to be highlighted is the fact that infidels, especially Christians, face violence in Muslim dominated refugee camps as a whole, not just in one location, either. This is why so few of anyone other than Muslims are housed in refugee camps. Religious minorities are targeted in camps, in which no one has any idea who his or her neighbor is.

“Aid workers in Syria’s Al-Hol camp at risk after IS murder medic,” AFP, January 16, 2022:

Aid workers in Syria’s largest camp for displaced people face an unprecedented threat, a Kurdish official said on Sunday, following the murder of a 26-year-old health worker by jihadists.

The Kurdish Red Crescent on Wednesday announced the death of a staff member from a gunshot wound “while carrying out his humanitarian duties” in northeastern Syria’s Al-Hol camp.

Two members of the Islamic State group (IS) killed the aid worker after entering the medical centre using false identities, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Most of Al-Hol’s residents are people who fled or surrendered during the dying days of IS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” in March 2019.

Al-Hol shelters around 56,000 displaced people and refugees — including from multiple nations — and most of them younger than 18, according to latest United Nations figures.

Since the fall of IS, Syria’s Kurds and the UN have repeatedly urged foreign countries to repatriate their nationals, but this has only been done in dribs and drabs, out of fear that terrorist attacks could take place on their soil.

The camp is controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.

“The security situation in the camp is volatile and cells of IS are still present” in Al-Hol, Chaykhamous Ahmed, an official with the Kurdish administration, told AFP.

Ahmed said the killing posed a “dangerous precedent” to humanitarian and medical organisations, adding that the agencies would continue their work “but not in the necessary way.”

The killing of the aid worker is a reminder that the security situation in northeast Syria “remains unacceptable,” senior UN aid officials said in a statement Wednesday.

Essential aid can only be delivered “when steps are taken to address persistent safety issues,” they said.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), one of the main agencies working in Al-Hol, said in a statement that the killing of the aid worker was “a further demonstration of the violence and unsafe living conditions” of the camp…..