Al-Fassel | 2026-02-05

A plastic flap passed for a door, separating the bitter cold from a dimly lit tent where children spoke English and formal Arabic.

Inside al-Roj and al-Hol camps in Syria, around 26,000 women and children, many detained for years, remain after being abandoned by men who joined ISIS.

Their stories reveal a stark truth: joining ISIS was a catastrophic choice that condemned families to statelessness and despair.

Abandoned wives and widows

Inside al-Roj, most detainees are foreign wives and widows of ISIS fighters who were killed, captured or fled.

One British woman, speaking in a hushed voice, begged journalists for no photographs, fearing her relatives' efforts to bring her home would collapse.

Her citizenship had been revoked, she said, leaving her and her 9-year-old son "utterly and totally stateless."

She insisted she no longer followed ISIS, yet her child was beaten by other boys because his mother had renounced the group.

Women interviewed in the camp described how ISIS leaders vanished while their families were rounded up and detained indefinitely.

Some followed husbands out of ideology or pressure, but many others were coerced.

All were discarded once the group collapsed, left to navigate survival without legal status or clear futures.

Years trapped with no way home

Across northeastern Syria, tens of thousands of ISIS-linked women and children have spent years in camps like al-Roj and al-Hol.

In al-Roj's dusty market, Alma Ismailovic from Serbia pleaded to return home and "live a normal life with my children."

A Russian woman, Hanifa Abdallah, said bluntly, "There is no Islamic state. It's over. All that's left is us women."

Few countries have agreed to repatriate their nationals, leaving children to grow up behind wire, without schooling, a future or citizenship.

The lesson is stark: ISIS members promised belonging and purpose, only to abandon their families to rot in distant detention camps.