Fire at Al-Hol camp as US-led coalition moves 50 IS detainees to military base

A fire broke out on Tuesday at a refugee camp in Syria housing thousands of relatives of suspected Islamic State group militants.

At least 16 tents were burnt in the Al-Hol camp in eastern Syria’s Hassakeh governorate before security forces and firefighters extinguished the flames, as several families were forced to flee.

No injuries were reported.

In comments made to The New Arab’s sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, activist Amjad Al-Sari said that the fire started in one of the kitchens in the camp’s seventh section and spread, confirming that no human casualties were reported.

He said the cause of the fire was still unknown.

The camp is home to around 59,000 Iraqi and Syrian refugees, including 2,525 families of militants suspected of belonging to IS.

In separate developments on Tuesday, 50 IS prisoners were transported by two helicopters from Hassakeh city’s Ghweran prison to a US base in Al-Shaddadi, in the south of the governorate.

Among those prisoners were British and Russian nationals.

IS once controlled very large swathes of Syria, claiming its own caliphate. Despite being defeated, small pockets of IS-held territory remain mainly in the country’s southern desert region.