Three years ago, a global coalition of countries led by the United States retook most of the territory in Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State. Once ISIS was defeated on the battlefield, the world moved on. Left unanswered was the question of what to do about the people, including thousands of children, who had come from abroad, either voluntarily or through coercion, to live under ISIS rule and were now abandoned by their governments.
Many of the women and children, and a small number of men, ended up in two detention camps in the middle of the desert in northeast Syria, where they remain today, with no way out. Some of the camps’ residents had been willing adherents to ISIS, whereas others were victims of trafficking and online grooming. Still others were taken as children to join ISIS or lived in ISIS-controlled territory and were displaced, co-opted, or coerced into the control of the group.
