12 September, 2017
Iraqi army and intelligence officers told Reuters news agency journalists who visited the camp at Hammam al-Alil over the weekend that numerous women and children no longer had their original documents, but that most were Turkish.
"The peshmerga handed over 1,333 women and children from jihadist families from the Islamic State group", said the senior official in the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC).
The official said the ministry has already contacted the foreign and defense ministries of Iraq through the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad, but no details have been confirmed, according to the official. Their account of life under the militants is in sharp contrast to that offered by other residents of Tal Afar, who fled by the thousands in the months leading up to the operation because of severe shortages of food and other supplies. They have mostly arrived at the camp south of Mosul since Aug 30.
Turkey, along with Iraq, Iran and Syria, also opposes the idea of Iraqi Kurdish independence, fearing separatism could spread to their own Kurdish populations. She said she did not know what had happened to her husband, who had brought her to Iraq when he joined ISIS adding that she used to live in Paris.
Aid workers and authorities are anxious about tensions between Iraqis who lost their living in the camp after they lost their homes and the new arrivals.
In a statement issued, NRC declared that it is imperative that these individuals are able to access protection, assistance, and information. "They are in de-facto detention".
Western officials are anxious that radicalized fighters and their relatives will return to their home countries after the collapse of ISIS.
French officials have indicated a preference for citizens found to be affiliated with IS to be prosecuted in Iraq.
"This decision has no value and we will not implement it", he told Reuters. "We think children would benefit from judicial and social services in France".
A woman and a small child lie on the floor of a tent in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. Many were still wearing the black abayas and face-veils, which was mandatory in areas the militants controlled.
"My mother doesn't even know where I am", a 27-year-old French woman of Algerian descent said. She said she had been tricked by her husband into coming with him to Iraq through Turkey and Syria when he joined ISIS a year ago.
"I had just given birth to this little girl three months before", she said holding the infant and asking not to be named.
After four months in Mosul, she ran away from her husband to Tal Afar in February. "We lived our lives as Muslims and we were very happy until the warplanes came and destroyed everything", she said.
The woman said she doesn't care anymore whether her husband is dead or alive.
The women and children "surrendered to Kurdish forces" deployed north of Al-Ayadieh, said the official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
In spite of this, the spy agency here said in June 2016 that the extremist group had designated several US Air Force installations and nationals here as potential targets for attacks. They had sought to blend in with other displaced people fleeing Tal Afar.
