Executive Summary

For over five years, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) caused death and destruction throughout northeast Syria. Between 2014 and 2019, in a region that had already seen several consecutive layers of unrest, repression and violence, a new and almost inconceivable depth of cruelty was visited upon the civilian population.

Much has been written about the years of ISIS rule and the anti-ISIS conflict that followed. But as far as northeast Syria is concerned, a great deal of the popular knowledge about this period concerns ISIS’ immense brutality and the fact that forces from the region—including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—fought successfully to oust the group from its territorial foothold in Syria.

By comparison, relatively little has been heard from the ordinary women, men, and children who suffered directly at the hands of ISIS. There have been countless reports, documentaries, and books about the shocking violence of ISIS’ regime. Minorities, such as the Yazidi, have often been the focus of attention. But to date, there has been no concerted effort to collect and analyse the stories of communities across the northeast, let alone consider what can be done to address the many scars inflicted by years of ISIS rule. In some ways, it is remarkable that so little has been heard from ISIS’ victims in northeast Syria.

We live in an age where there is, at least from western states, almost a reflex reaction to call for accountability for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. This may be followed by demands for some kind of inquiry, maybe a truth commission, and then reparations.

And yet such calls for accountability, memorialisation or reparations have been muted when it comes to northeast Syria. The reasons for this are not hard to understand. Syria had already been engulfed by three years of uprising and civil war prior to the arrival of ISIS—a conflict that, for much of the northeast, was rooted in decades of ethnic discrimination and repression. Nowadays, though in control of the region, the Autonomous Administration remains stuck in the midst of a frozen conflict in which many relevant powers appear reluctant or uncertain about how to proceed with meaningful accountability or recovery measures—largely because of the political sensitivities that these efforts might imply.

This report does not seek to emulate or substitute itself for accountability measures. It is not an evidence-gathering effort to support criminal prosecutions. Rather, it seeks to offer the beginning of an answer to the question of how societies, confronted by sustained ‘radical evil,’ can try to recover.[1]

Experience indicates several steps are necessary. At the very root of meaningful recovery is the need to acknowledge and respond to the experiences that have taken place, both in psychosocial and political terms. The relative silence on accountability issues simply serves to highlight the feeling that northeast Syria has been asked to exist in a kind of void since the defeat of ISIS, with the international community almost confused about what to do there or how to do it.

The report is therefore an attempt to take a conscious step toward facilitating recovery. That effort is not motivated simply by a moral or humanitarian impulse; facilitating a genuine recovery is essential from a pragmatic point of view to develop resilience, and to contribute to security and the prevention of future violence.

Of the hundreds of victims and survivors interviewed for this report, it was striking how many indicated the moral significance of being asked to speak in this way about their experiences and to have some kind of organised setting in which to present those experiences. The process this report documents is an exercise in acknowledging the dignity and humanity of those who suffered so grievously under ISIS. The telling of the story of the conflict so far has in large part focused on military issues, foreign victims, and high-profile, egregious atrocities. This account seeks to reclaim some of that narrative and explain what happened to ordinary civilians who were subjected to the brutal ordeal of five years of ISIS rule.

About this report

Part One of this report details the history of ISIS, its ideological roots, and its route to power in the context of the Syrian conflict.

Afterwards, the report is divided into two principal components. Part Two has a geographical focus, featuring detailed chapters on the experience of the conflict and occupation in six areas: Kobane, Hasakeh, Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. Part Three is thematic, with four chapters considering the impact of ISIS rule and the anti-ISIS conflict through the lens of the economy, education, gender, and mental health and psychosocial harm.

THE IMPACT ON SIX COMMUNITIES IN NORTHEAST SYRIA

The chapters detailing impacts in six areas—Kobane, Hasakeh, Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor— deliberately begin by situating the arrival of ISIS historically and geographically. They describe the towns and areas in question with a view to reminding the reader that these were places where ordinary life took place, and that it was this ordinariness that was shattered. The chapters likewise explain the context in political and historical terms.

There were many similarities between the targeted areas, from the brutal way that ISIS sought to establish its control to the stifling social and ideological programme imposed across them. The six areas all saw horrific violations and human rights abuses, including public executions, massacres, suicide attacks, torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detentions and violations against women and girls, among others. ISIS also subjected the region’s many minorities to horrific treatment. Many of these have been classified by various entities, including the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Unsurprisingly, there were also significant differences between the areas. ISIS never established full control over some, such as Kobane and Hasakeh, whereas it was in control of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor for many years. Politics mattered: not all the areas had the same experiences under the regimes of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad; some had been early centres of the anti-Assad protest movement, whereas others did not join the initial wave of demonstrations. How the early years of the Syrian war played out in each of the areas would later influence ISIS’ impact there. Their ethnic composition, socio-economic factors and geography did, too. Guided by the testimony of people from across the six localities, these chapters seek to tell these unique stories. 

The first chapter focuses on Kobane. The Kurdish-majority city was besieged by ISIS for months during the autumn of 2014. ISIS had recently won important victories in Iraq and Syria, most notably in Mosul, and had declared itself a “caliphate” with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as its leader. Its full-scale assault on the city caused widespread displacement as residents moved to the Turkish border; many of those who remained in the countryside around Kobane were killed as ISIS advanced. Despite the use of car bombs, suicide bombings, and heavy shelling, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) and affiliated Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ) repelled the offensive and, with aerial support from the United States (US), broke the siege of Kobane. By the start of 2015, residents slowly began to return to a city that had been largely destroyed, left without electricity and basic services, and rife with poverty and hunger. Their ordeal was not over: in June 2015, ISIS infiltrated Kobane once again and launched a 24-hour killing spree across the city, killing over two hundred civilians in what residents saw as a deliberate act of revenge. Although it would take several years, Kobane set ISIS on a path towards defeat across northeast Syria.

The second chapter details the impact of ISIS across Hasakeh governorate. Rich in resources, ISIS made significant efforts to take control of the area, which also formed the base of operations for the Kurdish anti-ISIS resistance. The chapter begins by detailing the political and economic context of relations between Hasakeh and Damascus in the lead-up to the outbreak of the Syrian war and the historic marginalisation faced by the Kurdish-majority population of the area as a result of the 1962 “special census” and so-called “Arab Belt” project. Although many of Hasakeh’s residents joined anti-Assad protests in 2011, most hoped their region would remain unaffected once the uprising turned violent. In 2014, ISIS launched a large-scale attack on Hasakeh, which, would have allowed it to establish control over the Syrian-Turkish border. It quickly captured parts of the governorate bordering Iraq, from which it conducted attacks on Yazidi areas in northwestern Iraq. By 2015, ISIS controlled large parts of Hasakeh, from which it conducted car bombings and suicide attacks behind the lines of the YPG. The chapter includes accounts of these attacks. The parts of Hasakeh that were under ISIS control, meanwhile, saw widespread forced displacement of Kurds—in some ways, a brutal, extreme continuation of the anti-Kurdish policies long pursued by Syria’s Arab rulers—and targeted campaigns against Christian and Assyrian communities. From April 2015, after the liberation of Kobane, the tide turned against ISIS in Hasakeh. Militias pushed ISIS back to the provincial border between Hasakeh and Raqqa, slowly preparing for their offensive on ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital. Even then, it would take until 2016 before the entire governorate was recovered. Hasakeh would end up hosting various camps for suspected ISIS fighters and their families, ensuring the legacy of ISIS’ violence would live on in the area for years to come.

Manbij, covered in the third chapter, occupied a strategic location close to the Syrian-Turkish border and served as a gateway to Aleppo. Predominantly Arab, it had enjoyed a relatively stable relationship with Damascus before the uprising, but not everyone had benefitted and many Manbij residents joined early anti-government protests as a result. This quickly descended into infighting between dozens of armed factions. ISIS, then still allied with Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, quietly expanded into the city until early 2014, when it expelled all other groups from the city, establishing sole control over the area. It would be several years before the group relinquished control over the city, during which time ISIS implemented a repressive social programme in what had once been a more liberal city in the region. The chapter details abuses committed by ISIS during this time: public executions, which intensified after ISIS’ defeats in Kobane and Hasakeh; and serious violations against women and girls, including forced marriages, sexual slavery, and the presence of Yazidi slave markets in the city. Kurds, a minority in the area, were systematically targeted, arrested and expelled from the area. Following gains in Kobane and Hasakeh, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led Coalition focused their efforts on liberating Manbij. The offensive got underway in the summer of 2016, and after two months of intense battles with many civilian casualties, ISIS was expelled from the city.

The fourth chapter covers Tabqa. Although it was historically considered more loyal to the Syrian regime, Tabqa and the strategic dam outside the city came under the control of opposition forces in 2013. After falling out with Jabhat al-Nusra and other opposition forces, ISIS became the dominant force in Tabqa. In August 2014, it captured Tabqa’s military airport, killing more than two hundred Syrian army soldiers, many of whom were publicly executed. Once it had full control of the region, ISIS killed large numbers of prisoners; bodies were regularly crucified or strung up and executions were often filmed and distributed across town. Several women were stoned to death in Tabqa on charges of prostitution. ISIS ended up controlling Tabqa for nearly four years. In 2017, having recaptured Manbij, the SDF and the US-led Coalition forces launched a campaign for Tabqa. Following heavy battles, during which the Tabqa Dam was nearly destroyed by aerial bombardment, ISIS fighters agreed to a negotiated withdrawal to Raqqa. By May 2017, Tabqa was liberated.

Raqqa is the focus of the fifth chapter. Raqqa, a majority-Arab city with a long and storied history, was proclaimed ISIS’ “capital” by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in June 2014. Raqqa had been spared the initial fighting of the Syrian conflict, but it was the first governorate to fall entirely outside the control of Assad’s forces in March 2013. Infighting between Ahrar al-Sham and other armed opposition groups eventually paved the way for ISIS to seize the city, which it did in November 2013. As its chosen capital, there was an incentive for ISIS to invest in public services and the group set up “ministries” in the city, although services later withered. ISIS imposed a sense of order, albeit one underpinned by brutal repression of any dissent. Mass executions, including on the city’s al-Naim Roundabout, were commonly carried out against captured enemy soldiers as well as those accused of apostasy, blasphemy, or spying. Raqqa became littered with mass graves, some of which contained several hundred bodies. Perhaps more than any other Syrian city, Raqqa saw arbitrary arrests and torture; the city held several dozen ISIS prisons, including the notorious Point 11 facility. There were slave markets where Yazidi women and girls were sold. Although most Christians had already left before ISIS took control of Raqqa, after ISIS, no Christians remained. Raqqa’s Kurds were also forcibly displaced. By June 2017, Raqqa was besieged by the SDF and US-led Coalition forces. Fought concurrently with the battle for Mosul, it was a strategically important battle for the last major city in Syria fully under ISIS control. An intense four-month fight ensued that ultimately killed more than 1,600 civilians and rendered Raqqa “the most destroyed city in modern times.”

Deir Ezzor, the topic of the final chapter of this partof the report, suffered longer than any area in the northeast—living under ISIS rule for around six years. The chapter details the historic influence of tribes in the area, the socio-economic difficulties faced by the population, and the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood around Deir Ezzor. It describes how the city was early to join the Syrian uprising in 2011. ISIS had fought alongside armed rebel groups until April 2013; thereafter, it sought dominance and successfully played tribal politics against Nusra, culminating in a destructive battle between the two groups in al-Shuhayl. ISIS emerged victorious, which left it in control of nearly all of Deir Ezzor, apart from the parts of Deir Ezzor city still held by pro-Assad forces. Tribes that had stood with Nusra, and particularly the al-Shaitat clan, faced severe consequences: hundreds of al-Shaitat tribesmen were killed in August 2014 in one of the large single massacres committed by ISIS. Across Deir Ezzor, communities witnessed horrific abuses, including the stoning of women and men, corporal punishment, and the systematic use of torture. Some 100,000 people in government-held Deir Ezzor city lived under siege for years, dependent on World Food Programme air drops for their survival. In the summer of 2017, the Syrian army, supported by Russian airstrikes, finally managed to break the siege. It would still be two more years before ISIS was defeated on the eastern bank of the Euphrates: after the fall of Raqqa, the remaining ISIS fighters were pushed into its final pocket of territory, stretching around 40 kilometres from Hajin to Baghouz. Although ISIS looked like a spent force, it took until 2019 for the last fighters to be defeated. Many fighters and families were captured and transferred to prisons or camps in Hasakeh; some fought to the bitter end, while others disappeared to fight a low-level insurgency that continues until today.

ANALYSING ISIS RULE & ITS IMPACTS

Economy

The chapter on economic impacts focuses significantly on how ISIS controlled and instrumentalised northeast Syria’s economy to finance itself and expand. To the extent possible, it also considers the economic impact of the war on the region’s prospects for recovery. The destruction of much of the basic economic and governance infrastructure both by ISIS and the campaign to defeat the group has left the Autonomous Administration working from an extremely low base. Such efforts take place in the context of ongoing political and military tensions, both with the Assad government in Damascus and with pressures from Turkey on the northern border.

Northeast Syria was historically underdeveloped for decades before the post-2011 conflict broke out. For more than 40 years, Syria’s northeast was significantly poorer than other parts of Syria, despite its productive and resource-rich agricultural and oil sectors. Economic policies directly and indirectly discriminated against the Kurdish population. While many parts of Syria saw progress in the 1990s and early 2000s, poverty increased in the northeast, contributing to the highest rates of urban and rural poverty anywhere in the country.

At one point after 2014, ISIS was by far the best-financed non-state armed actor in the world, with its finances outstripping those of several small nation states. By far the biggest contribution to its coffers was the oil industry in both Iraq and northeast Syria. All of Syria’s oil reserves are in the northeast, and while modest in global terms, they played a significant part in the country’s economy. ISIS had control of all the main oilfields in northeast Syria before the end of 2014, with the limited exception of fields in Hasakeh that remained under Kurdish control. Exactly how much ISIS was making from its oil assets from 2014 through at least 2016 is hard to say, but estimates suggest as much as $3 million per day during 2014 and $1.5 million per day into 2016.

While oil was the principal source of finance, ISIS raised significant income throughout its occupation through the taxation of every facet of daily life. This included agricultural and customs taxes as well as levies on electricity, gas and drinking water. Additional sources of income came through fines and punishments, ransoms for kidnappings, and the payment of the jiyza tax, which targeted non-Muslim residents who fell under ISIS’ rule.

ISIS had a devastating impact on the local economy. Many families lost their primary breadwinner; many more were incapacitated physically and/or mentally, unable to work to the same levels as before the conflict. In addition, the large number of those with physical and mental illnesses has added a significant burden to a welfare budget that depends almost entirely on humanitarian assistance. The cost of surgery for physical disabilities after the conflict means operations are beyond the means of the vast majority of those injured. The destruction of infrastructure and housing, in addition to areas still affected by unexploded ordnance, also limits the capacity for practical recovery.

Oil remains a key source of revenue for the Autonomous Administration, contributing up to 60% of its current funds. The agricultural sector has not been able to recover from the devastation of ISIS, hampered further by the effects of drought. Some 90% of the population in the northeast is now considered to be living in poverty.

Education

The chapter on education highlights the deep and long-term damage that ISIS’ reign of terror wreaked on local communities and specifically on children.

ISIS’ rule radically upturned the lives of both teachers and students. Education under ISIS was instrumentalised with a clear ideological bent, meaning teachers were required to demonstrate allegiance and enthusiasm for doctrinal positions. They were seen as the frontline in creating a new generation of believers and soldiers. Teachers who did not demonstrate the necessary enthusiasm often paid with their lives; others were subjected to torture. Some instructors sought to live a double life, organising clandestine schooling in many communities, at enormous risk to themselves. Others, of course, succumbed to the threats and terror, and taught what they were asked to teach.

The deliberate and swift creation of an ISIS curriculum both in Arabic and English indicated both how well ISIS understood the importance of education for disseminating its ideology and consolidating its control over local communities. Besides indoctrination, one of the most disturbing aspects of the accounts in this chapter relates to the militarisation of the curriculum that sought to normalise death, brutality and violence.

The impact of ISIS’ hold on the educational system was profound. Many families took enormous risks by refusing to send their children to schools where the new methods and curriculum were in place. ISIS’ recognition of the plasticity of young minds was not without results: many accounts tell of how children threatened to report their elders, including teachers, if they saw them indulge in forbidden talk or conduct such as smoking. Teaching experts comment on how northeast Syria’s education system has not just been destroyed, but that a whole generation of young people in the region have effectively lost the opportunity of a meaningful education.

Years later, one of the most pressing issues for northeast Syria’s education sector is the level of destruction of educational infrastructure. Many schools were destroyed. Not all destruction was done by ISIS; as part of their anti-ISIS campaign, the SDF and US-led Coalition were also responsible for damage to and destruction of school buildings.

The recovery of the education system has been severely stalled, despite the efforts of those working in the area. The necessary resources, not only to rebuild the physical infrastructure but also to help address the trauma suffered by many teachers and pupils, have so far been inadequate. While this will likely require the work of a generation, at least, the need for well-planned, direct recovery and reconstruction is an urgent priority.

Gender

It is well known that ISIS’ extreme ideological positions had dire implications for women and girls.

The treatment of women captured in conflict or under occupation was especially alarming. A good deal has been written about the treatment of Yazidi women and how many of them were subjected to sexual slavery as “spoils of war.”  Captive women were subjected to unspeakable levels of sexual violence, rape, gang rape and torture. While the Yazidi women were a particular focus of such egregious abuse, many others captured in the northeast itself were also subjected to similar treatment.

The chapter on gender also notes that while the systematic and widespread abuse of women through sexual slavery, rape and torture characterised the conduct of ISIS in all the areas it occupied, it is also true that a significant number of women appear to have voluntarily decided to join the group—including from many countries abroad. The chapter reflects on the possible reasons for this, despite the apparent incongruity of allegiance to a deeply misogynistic group. Notwithstanding the number of women who did voluntarily join ISIS, many of these women’s testimonies speak about the abusive treatment they received from ISIS husbands.

The chapter also reflects on the extreme violence perpetrated against women and girls, but also the underlying rationale of ISIS’ extreme views that sought to identify it as distinct not only from western societies but also from what it regarded as flawed, corrupt Muslim societies.

The data on sexual violence among men and boys is much more limited, largely due to the stigmatization involved. Even so, the available evidence points to high levels of rape of men and boys captured or detained by ISIS.

The misogyny and extreme ideology of gender relations instilled by ISIS were not only profoundly damaging to the women in the region but had a longer lasting and traumatic impact on social relations. In some parts of the region, there was already a conservative approach to gender relations, notably in more rural communities. The teachings and demands of ISIS were not universally rejected in such areas. The conception of “masculinity” developed under ISIS was also premised on a kind of heroic violence accompanied by proprietary entitlements. The impact on children and adolescents more susceptible to indoctrination has also created a large number of problems in a generation with dystopian attitudes toward women and girls.

Mental health & psycho-social distress

The capacity for dealing with the physical and mental consequences of years of ISIS rule was severely hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, which itself laid bare the paltry state of the region’s healthcare system. The massively depleted system was hit with another challenge in 2022 due to a cholera outbreak.

In some ways, it is easiest to measure the impact of ISIS on the mental and psychosocial health of the region by looking at the destruction of healthcare infrastructure. As with the education sector and the destruction of schools, many hospital and clinic buildings were destroyed or repurposed during the conflict. Once on the backfoot, ISIS booby-trapped countless health facilities, causing even greater damage years after the frontlines calmed. Despite efforts to recover, the damage to basic infrastructure and critical services impedes service provision to this day.

ISIS took an ideological view of “western medicine” that had a catastrophic clinical impact on the lives and welfare of many ordinary civilians. It had direct effects on diagnoses for cancer and cardiac conditions, on drug availability, and on immunisation coverage for preventable diseases throughout the region—all with consequences for the longer term.

The ISIS rule also radically altered healthcare roles and the “culture” of the service. This was perhaps most obvious in how the group only allowed female practitioners to deal with female patients, restricting expert female doctors from applying their skills to men, for example, in cardiology and orthopaedics. Similarly, male gynaecologists were prevented from treating women.

The chapter also goes into significant detail on the nature and extent of mental health and post-traumatic stress disorders in northeast Syria. Interviews with victims and survivors point to high rates of serious PTSD in many of those who survived or witnessed ISIS’ brutality. It also highlights the impacts on physical health for those in the region, along with ongoing disabilities resulting from the conflict. A large number of those suffering from physical disabilities are at greater risk of mental health problems. Attention is also given to the impact of displacement on the mental and physical wellbeing of the hundreds of thousands forced to seek safety elsewhere under ISIS, and to a variety of specific traumas related to different kinds of atrocities.

The capacity of the area to recover from the damage inflicted on it by ISIS is extremely limited. While there are indications of attempts to develop a more strategic approach to mental and psychosocial needs in the region, there are doubts about the depth of these approaches and the basic availability of the necessary resources to go beyond short-term care. As a result, the chapter explores and explains in detail the real costs and damage to mental and physical health, the—broadly inadequate—steps taken so far to address them, and the possible ways forward. This begins with an awareness of the depth of the crisis and the challenges, an effort to address stigmatisation and aversion to discussion, better integrated planning, and a move away from humanitarian initiatives to resilience and victim-oriented initiatives.

RECOMMENDATIONS

While the war against ISIS has ended, the local economy has yet to recover beyond running repairs and hand-to-mouth humanitarian assistance. Support for the recovery of the educational system, the public and mental health systems, and repair of gender relations, which suffered so deeply during ISIS’ rule, has remained substantially absent. This is not to denigrate the efforts of those seeking to provide aid in these areas, but the analysis indicates that in all relevant areas, the nature of that assistance cannot be said to be structural, systematic, or sustainable.

The result is that, four years after the fall of Baghouz, the communities most directly affected by the scourge of ISIS remain largely in an abyss of economic crisis but also without the means to address the legacy of their oppressors. It has left families to their own devices, struggling with the legacy of psychological and physical trauma. A generation of children has been left scarred. While the Autonomous Authority is seriously committed to gender equality, the disastrous regression in the treatment of women and girls under ISIS, accompanied by the cult of violently abusive masculinity, will take years of concentrated effort to undo. Added to this is the reality that ISIS has not entirely disappeared. Sleeper cells carrying out continued attacks through northeast Syria indicate at least the possibility of a limited re-emergence.

A comprehensive solution to these issues would require international political agreement. Recognising that the expectations of a political breakthrough in the conflict in Syria remain low, the report seeks to offer some modest, practical suggestions to support the meaningful recovery of the region in the short to medium term:

1. A renewed strategic approach should be adopted to focus on recovery and resilience in light of the information recounted in this report. A multi-disciplinary task force should be convened by the Autonomous Administration to focus on three areas: mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS); education; and gender-related issues. The task force should be composed primarily of local experts and leaders but also include the contributions of international experts and donors.
2. The task force should include and consult with the local agencies that have developed information on victims, martyrs, survivors, death, loss, and damage. The concerns and interests of the victims and survivors of ISIS violence should figure prominently in the development of a renewed strategy in the three areas indicated below:
   • Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support: The persisting crisis of mental health, including indications of extremely high levels of PTSD, is not surprising but needs to be addressed. The particular phenomena of ISIS’ cruelty and violence from mutilations and torture, public executions and crucifixion, the all-consuming brutality of the attempts to control not only behaviour but thought, have left the deepest of scars. The response to it needs to be specific and strategic if the children and adults affected are to have a reasonable chance of building a healthy life in the coming years. Efforts need to focus on restoring a functional core in terms of health infrastructure, counselling and training of health care professionals, and systematic care provision focused especially on best practices for PTSD to adults and children.
   • Education: The targeting of the education system was a strategic priority for ISIS and one in which they were successful. The consequences for the communities affected will be generational unless a specific recovery programme is developed to address the challenges of the ISIS legacy. Again, this means ensuring a core infrastructure as well as the provision of educational resources. Equally, so many teachers were terrorised or and traumatized that a specific programme that seeks to counsel and restore their capacity may be advisable. Closely connected to the issue of MHPSS, ensuring that schools are restored as fundamental safe havens for learning and development is crucial for the potential recovery of the region, for building resilience, and indeed for restoring values of tolerance and reconciliation.
   • Women and girls: The impact of ISIS on women and girls needs to be assessed and addressed. Reports, testimonies, and collective meetings indicated that, especially in rural areas, the role of women and girls remains in need of attention. Likewise, while all parts of society—women, men, girls and boys—were terrorised and traumatised by ISIS as well as impacted by ISIS’ oppressive approach to gender expression and roles, the particular focus on dehumanising women and girls requires a focused and strategic response to those practices and phenomena. At the same time, a detailed approach to detoxifying the cult of violently abusive masculinity is also necessary.
3. The missing: there remain large numbers of people unaccounted for as a result of the ISIS occupation throughout the region. Likewise, there are many unidentified graves. The authorities should develop a supported strategy to account for as many of the missing as possible, locate their whereabouts where possible, and provide the appropriate support to survivors.
4. Justice: This report is not conceived as a substitute for accountability efforts. In the aftermath of mass atrocities, it has been widely accepted, especially by western states, that justice and accountability are core values necessary to vindicate the rights and dignity of victims, and to confirm the social values that have been so profoundly attacked. Political circumstances in northeast Syria and in the countries of origin of ISIS fighters have so far made it impossible for a credible and concerted effort to see those most responsible for crimes in northeast Syria brought to justice. While the Autonomous Administration has indicated its willingness to prosecute some of those under its jurisdiction, it lacks the infrastructure and, more importantly, the probable recognition of any convictions in foreign countries. The large number of male detainees represents a drain and a threat. To demonstrate that the values of justice and accountability are considered universal, especially in the light of particularly egregious acts, the governments of those detained should engage with Autonomous Administration to resolve this impasse, facilitate at least a limited number of trials for those most responsible for serious crimes, and come to an agreement on the recognition of convictions and locations for imprisonment.
5. Al-Hol camp: The legacy of ISIS is most vivid in the camps in northeast Syria, in particular al-Hol camp, where tens of thousands of people, primarily women, girls, and boys, have been held since the fall of the ‘caliphate.’ With regular acts of violence and exploitation occurring there, as well as continued agitation by remaining ISIS supporters, the camps remain both a humanitarian catastrophe and a profound security threat. Efforts should be continued and expedited to support the returns of those in the camps wherever possible.

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[1] See: Carlos Santiago Nino, Radical Evil On Trial (Yale University Press, 1998). Nino, one of the architects of Argentina’s justice and accountability policies after the demise of the military juntas in 1983, described the country’s seven years of crimes against humanity by state forces as “radical evil.”