In Syria, Aid Cuts Threaten to Feed the Return of ISIS
The al-Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria is effectively an open-air prison for 50,000 people suspected of ties to ISIS. The Syrian Democratic Forces are struggling to deal with them — and now the Trump administration is cutting US funding.
Members of the Syrian Kurdish Asayish security forces stand guard at the al-Hawl camp, which holds relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters, in Syria on April 18, 2025. (Delil Souleiman / AFP via Getty Images)
Throughout decades of often disastrous American military interventions abroad, Washington has also claimed to support affected populations through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), promising some baseline level of survival. This relationship of dependency has served as a way for the United States to avoid accountability for its interventions. Yet now Donald Trump’s administration is pulling this support, with often devastating results.
One notable case is Syria. According to United Nations estimates, some 16.5 million people in this country need some form of humanitarian aid. Now the likely withdrawal of funds threatens one of the worst crises in decades. To speed up the process, Trump met with de facto president Ahmed al-Sharaa — formerly Mohammed al-Jolani — in Riyadh this month to agree that the new authorities would be involved in fighting terrorism in Syria and take responsibility for detention camps, implicitly in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
In the latter half of the 2010s, the international coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) was centered on the US alliance with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). After the defeat of ISIS in 2019, a site was set up in northeastern Syria to contain the enduring threat it posed because of its disbanded or perhaps still-organized fighters: al-Hawl. Approximately 50,000 people live there in what is officially a refugee camp, but in practice it has become an open-air prison. These families are arbitrarily detained by the Kurdish- but also Arab-led SDF for having any links — real or suspected — with the Islamic State.
Conditions are appalling. Many detainees report that, far from being supporters of ISIS, they were trafficked by it — but also say they were tortured and abused inside the camp itself. Meanwhile, daily life there is rapidly deteriorating. Kaauthar Murshed, a fifty-year-old woman living in al-Hawl, explains “we were not with them, but we were farmers and we were displaced with them. My husband was not with ISIS.” However, the organization continues to regroup, as evidenced by attacks in Syria and Iraq, according to Pentagon reports.
As events unfold, SDF is moving toward an agreement with the new authorities in Damascus to integrate into the new Syria. What remains unclear is what that means for this camp.
Inside al-Hawl
Life in al-Hawl is unbearable. The air, thick with desert dust, makes it difficult for the inhabitants to breathe. The scorching heat blasts through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees–provided tents, which are caked with dirt and fleas. After midday, the streets become impassable, and the sun burns the skin. A large percentage of the residents are children, some of whom were born on the spot. For many, their life in the camp is an endless wait, with no future in sight.
The site is divided into two main areas. The larger one is where more than 50,000 people of Syrian and Iraqi nationality live (exact numbers do not exist and vary depending on the source). Walking through the market is Fatima al-Hussein, a fifty-seven-year-old woman from the Iraqi province of Al-Anbar. As she buys vegetables, she says that “the supply of food (such as oil, sugar, rice, etc.) is insufficient; now the quantity has been reduced by half.”
In the same vein, health services are poor. She recounts that she has “bad eyesight, but they don’t refer me to a doctor because it takes money and I don’t have money to pay for it. So I could go blind, maybe die, and even then I won’t be able to pay for proper treatment.”
“I am suffering a lot because of my condition; they only give us paracetamol and ibuprofen, which do us no good, as we have chronic diseases and we have to buy medicines, which are expensive,” says this grandmother of six.
These conditions have turned al-Hawl into a ticking time bomb, the detonation of which is being accelerated by Donald Trump’s policies. Just four days into his presidency, the Virginia-based Blumont was ordered to suspend humanitarian aid to the Roj and al-Hawl camps. In addition, Trump continues to push for the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from northern Syria, where they provide military and logistical support to the SDF to deal with threats from ISIS, whose sleeper cells continue to attack from the Deir Ezzor desert.
Despite all this, children play football, wearing shirts with Ronaldo or Messi’s name on them. Their obsession with these icons pushes them to constantly ask, “Which is your favorite team?” For children, education is at its worst. Zeina Khelaf, thirty-five, sitting at her kiosk, explains that “our children grow up without education; they can’t read or write. My daughter is now twelve years old, and we can hardly find a school for her.” Although “we are treated well here, we want to go back to our homeland where we can find proper schools or learn a profession. We want our children to travel to fulfill their dreams and build their future. There is no future here,” Zeina reflects.
Kaauthar Murshed, who has seven children, says despairingly that “there are many vulnerable people here in the camp. The situation is deteriorating. I bought a bag of Syrian bread, but it’s not enough to feed them. We don’t have oil or sugar — not enough — we don’t have anything.”
There is a second section where some five thousand people from different families with foreign passports live, from at least fifty-three countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Violence is rife here. Only women and children live there, most of them under the age of twelve, but it is impossible to enter and talk to them. Crossing the fence, people are greeted by a brutal hail of stones thrown by hundreds of children shouting “Allahu Akbar” while pointing their fingers at the sky.
Cihan Hannan, a forty-year-old Kurdish woman who is head of the camp’s management, explains that “there are young generations who have grown up inside the camp, where women [there are no men in this section] have encouraged extremist ideologies to counteract the rehabilitation programs.” Part of the complexity lies in the fact that most are locked up without trial or conviction. Once the Islamic State was defeated, these families were detained to prevent its resurgence, but the inhumane living conditions generate a feedback loop of hatred.
At the same time, the camp administration’s dependence on international aid from Europe and the United States via NGOs has had a perverse effect, with no long-term solution. “I think there is some pressure to cut funding until the camp closes, but I see this as negative because you can’t cut aid to women and children,” says Hannan. For the camp director, “there must be two paths: the first is the return of the families, and the second is to improve living conditions. The two paths must run in parallel; it makes no sense to cut aid.”
Dangerous Cuts
Trump and Elon Musk gave the order in January and February 2025 to cut $117 million in humanitarian aid to fifteen projects in northeast Syria, as part of $60 billion in global foreign aid freezes. Twelve projects were for essential services such as medical care and water supply, according to the Northeast Syria Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (NES NGO Forum). The cuts directly affected al-Hawl and Roj camps, where, after the first cuts in January, security, bread, and fuel supplies were temporarily suspended. Funding shortages continue to jeopardize the delivery of essential supplies, especially bread, which is considered vital to avoid a collapse in the humanitarian situation.
The SDF has itself long expressed concern about the future of detention camps and prisons, warning that the current system is unsustainable. They also face the challenge of the lack of an effective education system to counteract the constant radicalization of minors by adults.
The security situation in the camp is also worsening. Kane Ahmad has been the head of the SDF in the camp since 2020, overseeing external security and leading rapid intervention forces in case of clashes. He explains, “We have different problems: We can’t cope with the surveillance because the international coalition is not providing the promised support. We have been bombed three times in the last year and a half, and fifteen soldiers have been killed.” There is a blind spot, the chief adds: “If we protect the area around the camp, Turkish surveillance will attack us,” and “if we don’t secure the perimeter, ISIS will expel people via smuggling.”
He adds that “we have sabotaged several operations prepared in the surrounding area, such as weapons and buried explosives,” gesturing with his hands to indicate that they were deep under the surface. “We have only one entrance through which 800 vehicles enter daily, and we don’t have the personnel or the technology to check them all 100 percent,” the sash-wearing chief details.
Weakened security at facilities such as the al-Sina’a prison in al-Hasakah, where around 12,000 ISIS members are held captive, has allowed attacks in the past. The lack of money to pay salaries has turned the situation into a latent danger, as indicated by the events of 2023 when ISIS deployed a large-scale operation against the al-Hasakah prison to free detainees. Ten days of heavy fighting in the city left at least 500 dead on both sides.
Dozens of SDF guards have been relocated to the west to slow the advance of Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) forces and Turkish air strikes. While NGOs must pay the Asayish (Kurdish private guards) escorts to enter the camp, salaries are dwindling due to lack of funds. Without US troops to support military and detention operations, the SDF may opt to prioritize offensive operations and abandon the prisons and camps, freeing thousands of ISIS fighters. The US troop presence in Syria was designed to maintain dominance over the fossil fuel fields, primarily to prevent them from falling into the hands of ISIS or the Assad regime. But the erosion of these resources has caused Washington to lose interest in the region.
Kane Ahmad, fifty-two, is concerned that “if basic needs such as food and clothing are not met, instability will increase, leading to more smuggling and chaos” because “if the violence escalates, thousands of ISIS detainees could be released, posing a threat to global security,” he concluded.
Camp manager Hannan explains that the Blumont organization — the main NGO working in the camp — secured funding from the US State Department until the end of September 2025. “Other organizations carried out advocacy activities and secured funding from other donors,” and the situation has “improved somewhat.” However, “the gap is in the health sector: the US State Department used to support the Hasakah People’s Hospital, but that support stopped completely,” she explains.
A Complex Solution
The situation remains uncertain and dangerous. It raises critical questions: How long will the camps hold, and what will happen if their defenses fall? Will this mean unleashing violent extremists? But above all, how can the humanitarian and human rights problem be solved?
Some answers can be found in the eight-point agreement between Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi on March 10 to advance the integration of the northeast into Syria’s new central administration. It may be key to the future of detainees in the camp. Al-Sharaa may revitalize the repatriation plan. Even so, US funding cuts and possible military withdrawal favor the return of ISIS, increasing the risk that it will regain territory and plan new attacks. Increasing destitution among detainees could make them more vulnerable to rejoining the radical Islamist organization.
The pact between the new government in Damascus and the SDF promises the protection and return of displaced people, which would significantly reduce the detained population and improve security. The camp administration is pushing for the release of 150 families to return to Syria and Iraq, while pressing for the extradition of foreigners from countries such as India, China, France, and Britain. Kurdish civil society groups are also working to assist in the reintegration of these families, helping women and children to abandon Islamic State ideology and start a new life. However, the process needs more support to provide a long-term solution.
Syria’s General Security Service recently conducted the first raids against ISIS in response to Trump’s announcement about easing sanctions. Meanwhile, the SDF continues to show that it is unpredictable in military operations against the extremist group. For now, we have seen only gestures between Trump, al-Sharaa, and the Autonomous Administration. Al-Hawl seems to be just one more shifting piece on the chessboard.
Faced with the new funding situation, Hannan asks, “Will the camp last beyond September, or for a year, or two or three? Will we be surprised by another cut in aid?” Under the new regime, nothing can be taken for granted.