ISIS members held in al-Hol camp will no longer exchange letters with families in Turkey: Ankara

Hale Gönültaş / DUVAR

The Turkish Interior Ministry has said that ISIS militants and relatives of the jihadists who are currently held in al-Hol detention camp in Syria will no longer be allowed to exchange letters with their family members living in Turkey. 

Those held in the camp that's controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is spearheaded by the People's Protection Units (YPG), were previously able to exchange letters with their families in Turkey by delivering them to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which then handed them over to the Turkish Red Crescent. 

The administrators of the camp told Duvar that there are nearly 2,000 Turkish nationals in the camp, including jihadists nabbed by security forces, their families, and the wives and children of the militants who were killed. 

According to the law of war, those held in the camp had the right to communicate with their families through the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had been arriving at the camp after receiving permission from the SDF to receive the letters. 

The letters were then delivered to the Turkish Red Crescent through various humanitarian organizations and they were delivered to the jihadists' families in Turkey after necessary controls were carried out by a special unit. 

The decision to halt the process was adopted jointly by the Interior Ministry and intelligence officials, sources told Duvar. They also said that the fact that the camp is controlled by the YPG-led SDF played a decisive role in stopping the communication. 

The camp is home to some 50,000 people and the majority of its residents are Iraqis and Syrians.