Widowed, Imprisoned, Detained: Remnants Of Islamic State In Limbo In Syria

A man suspected of being part of the Islamic State militant group, sits inside a prison hospital in Hasaka, Syria.

Suspects lie in a prison cell in Hasaka, Syria.

A suspect exercises in a prison in Hasaka, Syria.

Prisoners from Iraq and Syria, suspected of being part of the Islamic State militant group, sit inside a prison cell in Hasaka, Syria.

Alija Keserovic, a prisoner from Bosnia and Herzegovina, suspected of being part of the Islamic State, sits inside a prison hospital in Hasaka. 

A suspect lies on an examining table next to a doctor inside a prison in Hasaka, Syria.

Suspects pray inside a hospital in the Hasaka prison.

Abed El-Hamed Atiya, an Iraqi prisoner suspected of being part of the Islamic State group, sits next to a picture he drew inside a prison in Hasaka. He is kept apart from other prisoners, some of whom strongly object to his art. 

Suspects inside a prison cell in Hasaka.

Moamera Muhamedagic, who is from Bosnia and Herzegovina and is married to an Islamic State fighter, is being held at the al-Roj detention camp in Syria.

A Kurdish official shows the passports of captured Islamic State suspects in Rimelan, Syria.

A woman holds hands with a child while walking through al-Hol refugee camp in Syria. 

Children hold water containers in the al-Hol camp.

A woman looks out at the al-Hol camp.

A child is held by a woman inside a shop inside the al-Hol camp.

Prisons and detention camps in northeastern Syria hold thousands of men, women and children whose lives are in limbo nearly a year after the capitulation of Islamic State militants in the region. Many of the detainees are suspected of being members of the group, whose fighters tortured and executed thousands of people during its zenith from 2014. What to do with them is a thorny issue for countries whose citizens went to fight with the group. Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic captured this collection of photos taken in January 2020.