Syria: Concerns grow over security at IS detention camps (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Now there's fresh concern in Syria about the security of prisons and camps holding 40,000 suspected fighters from the Islamic State group and their families. Syria's government is demanding the Kurdish militias which guard the prisons disband and integrate into the Syrian army. But there are fears if fighting resumes the IS camps won't be secure. Our senior international correspondent Ola Giran set this report.

[00:00:27] Speaker 2: Rojkamp, a prison in all but name. We've come back to gauge the mood behind the wire as the political landscape in Syria changes. For years Kurdish officials have run camps and prisons for IS detainees, protecting the world they say. But soon the Syrian government led by a former jihadist could be in control. The camp manager Hekmia Ibrahim says many in Roj are emboldened and getting more aggressive. She shows me this IS flag newly daubed on one of the walls. Atrocities still happen here unnoticed by the world.

[00:01:24] Speaker 3: There was an incident last October involving twin brothers from Turkmenistan. One of them killed the other and later said he would do it again if his brother came back to life.

[00:01:38] Speaker 2: She tells us the dead boy was an extremist but not extreme enough for his brother. The twins were 14. In this muddy wasteland, no courts, no trials. Just 2,000 foreign women and children convicted of nothing, 40 Britons among them. At the camp's food market we met a woman from the UK who said she wanted to go home but was afraid to speak on camera in front of the guards. Other mothers said they worried for their young children growing up in all this without even a glimpse of the outside world.

[00:02:28] Speaker 4: I want to leave this place so my daughter can study and live her life. She has a right to an education, to visit a park, to get medical care. If she's ill, God forbid, she should be able to go to hospital like any other child without soldiers going with us.

[00:02:48] Speaker 2: What would you say to people outside who say you came and you joined IS and you don't have the right to go home?

[00:02:58] Speaker 5: First of all, I didn't join the organisation. My husband forced me to come here. He died and my children and I are paying the price. We want to tell people that we are victims.

[00:03:12] Speaker 2: Tell that to the Kurds who lost around 11,000 fighters defeating IS and are now in mourning once again. Here a mass funeral for six fighters killed by the Syrian army. Long live our martyrs, she says. Her aunt, Siddar, is among them. For the Kurds, more anguish. For the Middle East, more instability. And in this latest battle, the Kurds have no friends. Their former allies, the US, no longer by their side. Once again, Kurdish forces are coming to bury their dead. The enemy this time is the central government in Damascus and its armed forces. There is a fragile ceasefire between the two sides and talks are continuing. But there is a risk that this could become an all-out war in the new Syria. The Kurds insist they will be ready. We were shown frontline positions at the edge of Hasakah, one of the last remaining Kurdish strongholds. Siyam and Ali lost hundreds of friends fighting IS. He can never forget. He fears the international community already has.

[00:04:49] Speaker 6: It's not just the Americans, it's also the West. They should have stood by us because we made a significant sacrifice and fought tooth and nail against IS. What we achieved was good, not just for us, but for the whole world.

[00:05:04] Speaker 2: Now the Kurds wait as the end of the ceasefire approaches. If it comes to all-out war, they may be facing a losing battle, but say they will fight to their last breath. Orla Giren, BBC News, Hasakah, Syria.

[00:05:23] Speaker 1: Since Orla filed her report, an agreement between the sides to continue the ceasefire has been announced and to begin the integration of Kurdish forces into the Syrian army. A previous agreement on integration, signed last March, failed.