Al-Hawl camp, where Shamima Begum surfaced, is focal point of humanitarian crisis starring unsympathetic protagonists
When 20-year-old Shamima Begum, heavily pregnant and alone, managed to escape the US-led coalition bombing of Islamic State’s last stronghold two years ago, she left behind a scene resembling hell and entered limbo instead.
Begum was among an astonishing 64,000 women and children who poured out of Baghuz, a tiny oasis town on the Euphrates river, deep in the Syrian desert. Many of their husbands and fathers died defending the last sliver of the so-called caliphate.
Whether by accident or design, there was no plan in place for what to do with these families. Al-Hawl camp, where Begum surfaced, quickly became the focal point of a new humanitarian crisis starring unsympathetic protagonists. Set up in 2016 to house around 10,000 ordinary Syrians and Iraqis who had fled the group, suddenly it had a huge influx of new, and in some cases dangerous, arrivals.
