WORLD NEWS MARCH 8, 2019 / 1:24 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Islamic State extremism on show at 'miserable' Syria camp

Ellen Francis
5 MIN READ

AL-HOL CAMP, Syria (Reuters) - Foreign women with Islamic State have tried to assault others they deem “infidels” at a camp where they are being held in northeast Syria, trying to impose their views even as the jihadists are facing territorial defeat, Reuters journalists visiting the site have found.

“They yell at us that we are infidels for showing our faces,” said a Syrian woman at al-Hol camp, where women and children were transferred from Islamic State’s final bastion in eastern Syria. “They tried to hit us.”

The Baghouz enclave is Islamic State’s last shred of populated territory after years of attacks have rolled back its ultra-radical “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.

But its impending defeat is confronting the U.S.-allies Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the problem of what to do with growing numbers of people, many of them Islamic State followers, emerging from the enclave.

Most have been sent to al-Hol camp, already overcrowded with uprooted Syrians and Iraqis. Camp officials say they do not have enough tents, food, or medicine. Aid workers warn of spreading diseases, and dozens of children have died on the way there.

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