(MENAFN- Swissinfo) What will happen to Swiss nationals who joined the Islamic State terrorist group and who are now imprisoned in northeastern Syria? Human rights experts, humanitarian groups, and even the US are calling for repatriation. Switzerland says it won't support their coming back. This content was published on July 31, 2025 - 09:00 9 minutes Annegret Mathari

For at least six years, three Swiss men have been held without trial in prisons controlled by Kurdish autonomous authorities in northeastern Syria. They are among the tens of thousands of jihadists from Europe and elsewhere that came to join the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019. A Swiss woman and her eight-year-old daughter are also being held in Al-Roj, one of two camps where families of former IS fighters are detained.

But while some European countries and Iraq have begun to repatriate their nationals to prosecute them in their home country, Switzerland has so far refused, arguing that these prisoners should be tried in Syria or in Iraq.

Kai Reusser / SWI swissinfo

“These individuals are arbitrarily detained,” Kastriot Lubishtani, a Swiss-based lawyer and researcher, tells Swissinfo.“We cannot leave these people in a kind of Guantánamo without trial and without access to a court.” He is referring to the US detention facility in Cuba where prisoners were held indefinitely without trial after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Tens of thousands detained

In 2019, the US-backed Kurdish militia Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) overthrew the self-declared IS caliphate in northeastern Syria. The SDF captured tens of thousands of foreigners and Syrians suspected of being IS members, along with their families, and has held them in prisons and the Al-Roj and Al-Hol camps ever since.

According to the United Nations, around 9,000 IS-suspected men are currently imprisoned without trial, including 5,400 Syrians, 1,600 Iraqis, and 1,500 individuals from 50 other countries. Additionally, some 42,500 people are arbitrarily detained in the two camps, including relatives of IS suspects, refugees, internally displaced persons, and victims of human trafficking: 60% of them are children; the rest are mostly women.

A cell in the IS prison in Al-Hasaka, Syria. The facility, controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), holds around 9,000 suspected IS members from multiple countries. AFP Avoiding Responsibility

Thousands of Iraqis are currently being repatriated from the camps with support from their government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Progress is also being made to return Syrians displaced by the civil war. But third-country nationals remain.

“The majority of EU countries and other states have handed responsibility of their nationals over to the Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria,” Matthew Cowling tells Swissinfo. Cowling is a humanitarian affairs manager for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in northeastern Syria.

Former ICRC president Peter Maurer visits a field hospital in the Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, March 2021. Cicr Urgent Repatriation Demanded

Lubishtani is not alone in his assessment that human rights are violated in the camps. UN experts and human rights organisations have also criticised serious violations of detainees' rights.

“The change of government in Syria is a valuable opportunity to end the arbitrary, inhumane, and indefinite detention of around 52,000 people linked to the IS conflict,” declared 16 independent experts from the UN Human Rights Council in April 2025.

In December 2024 the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebel group, captured Damascus and overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000.

“These individuals have been held for at least six years without trial and under cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions, which violate international law,” Lubishtani says. Tuberculosis, for example, is widespread in the prisons, he adds.

MSF operates two clinics in the larger Al-Hol camp, treating patients with diabetes and high blood pressure. However, specialised care such as ophthalmology, dental treatment, and neurology is lacking, they say. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also runs a hospital in Al-Hol, visits detainees in prisons, and tries to facilitate contact between family members.

The UN experts called on all countries to urgently repatriate their nationals, rehabilitate and reintegrate them, or prosecute them if necessary.“We are concerned that many countries have abandoned their citizens or even arbitrarily revoked their citizenship,” they said.

The US also wants states to repatriate their citizens. Since the defeat of IS, US assistance has played a key role in managing and securing the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps, as well as the SDF-run facilities where thousands of IS fighters are imprisoned, said acting US Ambassador to the UN in New York, Dorothy Shea, in February at the UN Security Council.“The US has shouldered too much of this burden for too long. We continue to call on countries to swiftly repatriate their displaced and detained nationals in the region,” she said.

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