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On Wednesday afternoon, that battle appeared to be over, but no one seemed able to state definitively how many inmates had escaped or been killed. Among them had been roughly 700 minors, some captured on the battlefield three years ago, others separated from their mothers in detention camps.
In a photograph from the prison yard, provided by an SDF official, traces of battle were etched on the walls.
One section was scorched, and other parts had jagged holes where explosives or shrapnel had struck them. Scores of prisoners stood in line, dressed in orange jumpsuits and thin gray sweaters.
Almost three years after the SDF, which is largely Kurdish-led, captured the final sliver of land that the extremist Islamic State group had described as its Islamic caliphate, roughly 10,000 alleged members are packed into prison cells across northeastern Syria, in legal limbo and awaiting trial or repatriation to home countries around the world.
Roughly 3,000 of those were in the facility in Hasakah, officials said. A full head count was not available Wednesday, but it appeared that dozens of inmates might have escaped and that scores were killed.
Entry and exit from Hasakah had been prohibited while fighting continues. The fighting took place in a near-media blackout, aside from official statements from the SDF, but video footage and phone calls from inside the cells indicated that the damage and bloodshed could be extensive.
Farhad Shami said there was significant damage in the north wing, where minors are held. “I would say that it can’t be a prison again,” Shami said. “There has been a big fight there.”
The attack on the Syrian prison is the Islamic State’s most serious strike in the country for years. Negotiations had been underway for several days to end the standoff.
“Since yesterday morning, the number of prison staff liberated has risen to 23,” the SDF said in a statement earlier Wednesday before the final surrender.
Video footage circulated from the SDF Press Center showed several of the men being supported on their way out, their arms slumped around the shoulders of SDF colleagues as they hobbled toward an ambulance. After days without food or water, they looked exhausted.
The U.S.-led coalition launched days of airstrikes in support of the ground troops, many within the perimeter of the prison itself. A coalition official said that the force also bombed alleged militants in industrial land around the facility, and that some of the strikes damaged the prison building.
Coalition ground forces were also present, using armored vehicles to support the SDF as it fanned out around the prison to make the perimeter impermeable.
The siege of Ghwaryan Prison has unfolded like a chronicle foretold. Senior Kurdish and U.S.-led coalition officials have been warning for years that it was poorly defended and vulnerable to attack. Islamic State leaders have repeatedly urged their followers to break their fellow militants free.
“This isn’t a surprise,” said one senior Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. “Everyone knew this might happen.”
But the size of the attack from outside the prison walls caught the SDF by surprise, and it suggested that the militants, thought to be largely defeated, might have rebuilt their fighting capabilities more than previously thought. For days, they have used snipers, grenades and suicide belts to hold their ground as civilians streamed out of the surrounding neighborhoods amid the din of battle.
In public statements, the SDF said the attack had been planned for up to six months. It was unclear how this was known, or why it had not been thwarted.
Huddling in a nearby mosque this week, civilians described a panicked escape as fighting engulfed the area. “We didn’t bring anything with us; we just wanted to get the kids out,” said 36-year-old Nashmiya al-Badir. “It’s been years since such an attack. We thought that ISIS must be far from where we live.”
Questions about the prisoners’ future abound now. Although the facility has housed hundreds of foreigners, among them North Americans, Europeans and Australians, home governments have offered few indications that they intend to repatriate their citizens for trial or rehabilitation.
Shami, the SDF spokesman, said that 400 prisoners have been moved to other facilities, but he did not identify those places, citing security concerns. Some of the besieged boys have also been moved out into the general prison population, he said, an action that prompted rights monitors to express concerns for their safety.
Letta Taylor, a counterterrorism lead for Human Rights Watch, said she spoke directly to inmates from Canada and Australia as the siege unfolded. “They sound desperate. They say they’ve had no food or water for days; describe dead and wounded everywhere,” she said, adding that they feared stepping out in surrender, fearing that they would be shot by SDF forces.
Thousands more foreigners are spread across displacement camps that have become de facto detention facilities, with few signs that their governments will intervene any time soon.
A nearby British-funded detention facility, built to ease overcrowding in the older building, is nearing completion, officials said. But other facilities across the northeast are already in a parlous state, with defenses weak and overcrowding the norm.
Mustafa al-Ali in Kobane, Syria, contributed to this report.
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