JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed that there were 182 people who left the refugee camp in Syria had matching population data in Indonesia.
The Al-Hol or Al-Hawl refugee camp located on the southern outskirts of the city of Al-Hawl in northern Syria, near the Syrian-Iraqi border, is known to have housed thousands of refugees, mostly children and women, associated with suspected members of the ISIS group from various countries.
Along with the takeover of the territory by the Syrian Government forces from the Kurdish forces last month, many refugees in Camp Al-Hol fled.
Acting Director of Indonesian Migrant Protection of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Heni Hamidah, said that his party had "received reports from the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus regarding a number of individuals claiming to be from Indonesia who left the Al-Hol Camp in Syria, as an impact of internal political developments in Syria."
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the FTF (Foreign Terrorist Fighter BNPT) Task Force abroad has coordinated with the Ministry of Law to verify their citizenship and citizenship status," said Heni in a press statement in Jakarta, Thursday (19/2).
"If it's about the number, if from the FTF task force there are 182 people who have been in accordance with the population data in Indonesia," he said.
However, Heni said his party would coordinate further to ensure their citizenship "for further processes."
Heni added that a total of 280 people had reported to the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus.
Al-Hol, the largest refugee camp in eastern Syria, hosts tens of thousands of people, including Syrian internally displaced persons and family members of former fighters suspected of being involved in ISIS, UN News reported.
UN agencies have long warned that insecurity, overcrowding and limited services leave residents - many of them women and children - in a particularly vulnerable state.
The camp is run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The number of residents has dropped drastically from around 24,000 earlier this year, including around 6,000 foreign nationals suspected of being linked to former ISIS fighters, to around a few thousand, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
In detail, the number of people in Al-Hol Camp in January this year includes: 14,500 Syrians, 4,000 Iraqis, and around 6,200 people from various countries, with more than 95 percent of them being women and children, according to Save the Children.
The SDF maintained control of al-Hol during the last years of the al-Assad regime in Syria, which finally fell in December 2024.
Syrian government security forces entered Al-Hol Camp on January 21 to take control of the location.
Details and reports about how families and individuals left the camps, which at their peak in 2019 housed some 73,000 families, are conflicting.
In 2019, ISIS was defeated in Syria by a US-led coalition, which included the SDF. Al-Hol, located in Hasakah Province, was later established by the SDF after it seized most of northeastern Syria, with support from the US.
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