Fears over 30 UK Isis fighters in Kurd jails
Medic on how she delivered terrorist’s wife’s baby as she shares the fears and frustrations of life inside massive refugee camp in war-torn Syria
Thirty British Isis fighters are being held by the Kurdish forces in jails in north-east Syria, according to Whitehall analysts.
They are among 2,000 captured foreign Isis fighters, considered the most dangerous of the 20,000 former Islamic State combatants currently in prison camps across Syria and Iraq.
Among them are Shahan Choudhury – who left London in 2014 and who has claimed he had acted as a grave digger during Isis’s last phase, burying victims of the conflict – and Hamza Parvez, a former police cadet from London, who joined Isis in 2014 and appeared in online propaganda videos urging other Britons to travel and join up.
Analysts say the sheer number of radicalised individuals remains a pressing issue for regional and European security, and there is as yet no agreed international policy for dealing with them.
Crispin Blunt, a former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said the situation had to be addressed.
“At some point Britain and other countries have to face up to their responsibilities and help decide what should be done with them. It is not fair to leave the problem solely to the Kurds,” he said.
The young woman was struggling with a difficult labour and in need of urgent medical help.
But this was no ordinary delivery and no ordinary mumto-be. The 23-year-old woman was the wife of an Islamic State fighter.
She and scores of other IS wives and children had fled as their caliphate fell before eventually making their way to the Ain Issa refugee camp in north-eastern Syria.
There they are kept separate from other refugees in a fencedoff enclosure in one corner of the camp. The medical centre is run by Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international aid charity whose doctors and nurses save the lives of victims of wars, disasters and epidemics.
Among its team of volunteers in Syria was Erin Kilborn, an A&E doctor at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. After being told about the mum in labour, she and colleagues jumped into a van and raced across to the IS compound.
Erin, 35, said: “The mum was in danger of losing her life. She was one of several people in the camp in need of urgent medical help.”
With Erin’s help the mum safely gave birth, to a baby girl.
Those working for the aid agency do so on a “no judgment” basis, as Erin explained: “We help people of all ages, from newborn to elderly, with injuries and illness.
“The organisation treats anyone in need with dignity and respect, regardless of religion, culture or ethnicity.”
The Ain Issa camp lies near the regional capital of Raqqam, which was Islamic State’s last stronghold before being routed. Officially it is home to about 14,000 people but observers believe the real figure is closer to 20,000.
About 60 British men and women are thought to be held in prisons or camps after leaving the UK to join IS.
Hundreds of white tents, each home to one family, sit in straight lines with dusty paths running between them.
Around the official camp itself are groups of other tents and hastily-assembled shacks belonging to refugees who have not been fortunate enough to be allowed inside. Children play around, running along tracks and skipping between tents.
But it is far from being a safe haven. Former IS fighters lurk outside the perimeter fence, hoping to persuade former members inside the compound to escape, and last month hundreds of women and children fled after clashes between Turkish-backed militias and Kurdish forces.
Erin, originally from Renfrewshire, had travelled to the northern Syrian town of Kobane before being assigned to the camp. Boarding a white MSF 4x4 truck emblazoned with the charity’s logo, and stickers bearing a crossed-out rifle, symbolising no guns on-board, she made the hour-long journey along a dirt track to the camp.
There, she joined a team of volunteer nurses and one lone, exhausted doctor.
Erin said: “In Northern Syria patients suffer from disease and the legacy of serious injuries, blast injuries, burns common in war. But they also have mental health problems after seeing families and loved ones killed and lose their homes.
“They live in tents, a family to each one, and survive as best they can with food and water and clothing supplied. Lice and scabies are common and the families are often distraught at having to throw away the precious few belongings that are the few reminders of their old lives.
“They have to be destroyed to stop the infestation. Replacing clothes and bedding with new supplies is necessary, but traumatic.”
Erin has also worked at other medical centres in the district, including MSF’s hospital in Kobane.
There, she saw a nine-yearold boy admitted to A&E with full-thickness facial burns. A gas heater had exploded and struck him.
Receiving painkillers, and undergoing treatment on his searing injuries, what distressed the young victim most was not being able to see through his dressings.
Erin said: “We did what we
Trying to comfort a child in these conditions is one of the hardest things you’ll do as a doctor
could to treat his burns but it is upsetting to see a child so distressed.
“We have to remain professional and do what we can to help him cope.”
The Syrian surgeons and doctors offer good treatment but even the most experienced would not pretend they could match the care on offer at a large British teaching hospital.
“I would have loved to have taken him back to the UK but I couldn’t. We can’t”, said Erin.
“Trying to comfort a child like this is one of the hardest things you will do as a doctor.”
Another little girl was brought to the hospital by her distraught parents, who arrived at the gates reporting that their two-year-old had become seriously ill overnight.
Their daughter was struggling to breathe and her little ribs rose markedly as she gasped for air.
An X-ray revealed her right lung had collapsed following an infection.
As air came into her lung it escaped into her chest cavity, filled it and pushed the lung aside, leaving it little room to expand with enough oxygenated air in the next breath.
A pipe was inserted through her rib cage and the trapped air in the chest cavity escaped, allowing her to breathe again.
Antibiotics and other drugs killed the infection but Erin admitted to frustrations over the girl’s diagnosis.
“This was an X-ray I had not seen anywhere else I ever worked,” she said.
“She could have had TB. We felt there was definitely some underlying infection present which we could not diagnose because the X-ray was not specialised enough.
“That’s why we administer treatment for all possibilities.”
While the MSF medics offer unrivalled experience and expertise, they are careful to avoid patronising their Syrian colleagues.
“They do a good job with the equipment and resources they have and work under huge pressure with the large number of patients,” said Erin. “We work as a team and learn from each other. I share knowledge and skills and mutual respect is vital.”
Despite the “no guns” policy – as well as on vehicles, the signs adorn all doors in the hospitals and clinics – violence has become a way of life for some of the refugees.
In one hospital, said Erin, a family feud spilled into the A&E unit and shots were fired as staff ran for cover.
Next year Erin, who spoke at the World Extreme Medical Conference in Edinburgh recently about her work as a humanitarian medic, will reprise her MSF duties in Yemen.
It will be just the latest posting in a career that has seen her save lives in Central African Republic warzones, and in a specialist trauma centre for burns victims in Haiti.
“It is such a privilege to be able to be part of a team who take medical help to those who may otherwise go without,” she added.
“It’s why I became a doctor.”