Last week, al-Hol prison camp in North-East Syria collapsed and thousands of women and children fled, following recent fighting between the Syrian government and Kurdish forces. Roj prison camp, where around 15 British women and 30 British children are illegally detained, could be next.
Security experts have warned the camps were a disaster waiting to happen, but the UK Government buried its head in the sand.
“We’ve seen what happened with al-Hol: these camps can collapse, there can be fighting, and people can disappear,” Reprieve’s CEO Maya Foa told the Observer. “The do-nothing approach that the government is taking isn’t just harmful for the lives of the British kids and mothers: it’s also bad from a security perspective”.
In an open letter this month, Reprieve and a group of NGOs called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to abolish citizenship stripping. The use of this power is an affront to the principle of equality before the law. It makes some people’s citizenship worth less than that of others.
