DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A notorious camp in Syria that once housed tens of thousands of women and children with alleged links to the Islamic State group has been emptied, officials said Sunday.
Fadi al-Qassem, the Syrian Foreign Ministry representative for the al-Hol camp administration, said the final convoy left the camp Sunday morning.
Hundreds of residents of the remote camp in northeastern Syria have been transferred to the Akhtarin camp in Aleppo province in recent weeks and others have been repatriated to Iraq.
Officials have said the decision to empty the al-Hol camp was made because of its remote location in the desert — far from services and close to areas where the authorities do not have complete control of the territory.
The U.N. refugee agency said it assisted in the return of 191 Iraqi citizens from Syria’s al-Hol camp to Iraq on Thursday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, also reported that an unspecified number of residents "left the camp individually, without waiting for the organized convoys.”
After the defeat of IS in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at al-Hol, most of them Syrian and Iraqi citizens but also including thousands from other countries. The camp’s residents are mostly women, including wives or widows of IS members, and their children.
Since then, the number has declined, with some countries repatriating their citizens, leaving about 24,000 as of last month.
The camp’s residents were not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they had been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility for years.
Last month, Syrian government forces captured the al-Hol camp in a weekslong offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
During and after the fighting, many families are believed to have escaped from the camp.
The fate of the similar but smaller Roj camp in northeastern Syria, which is still under SDF control, remains unclear. Most of the residents of that camp are foreigners, whose countries have largely refused to take them back.
Syrian authorities turned back a group of 34 Australian women and children on Feb. 16 after they left the Roj camp, headed toward Damascus to board a flight back to Australia. Australian authorities later said they would not repatriate the families.
A Syrian government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly said Sunday that the issue stemmed from “the lack of prior coordination with the Syrian government” by the SDF and families of the would-be returnees before attempting to send them to Damascus.
The official added that “whether they will be allowed (to return) will depend on the Australian government.”
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Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed.
Unidentified women move through the camp holding family members of suspected Islamic State militants in the Roj Camp in eastern Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
The risk of a catastrophic explosion at a damaged chemical tank in Southern California has been eliminated following a close overnight inspection that confirmed a crack in the tank relieved pressure and cooled the chemical, authorities said Monday.
Officials said crews conducted tank temperature checks at night to reduce risks to firefighters, avoiding daytime operations when heat from the tank made conditions around it most dangerous. The overnight mission allowed crews to verify the crack and confirm temperatures were falling, Orange County Fire Authority division chief Craig Covey said Monday morning.
Covey said the results of overnight evaluation of the tank — that the temperature inside had dropped and that pressure had been released — was “incredibly positive news.”
However, evacuation orders remained in place for about 50,000 people in Garden Grove, California, located south of Los Angeles.
Covey said falling temperatures and the release of pressure from the tank were allowing officials to “turn the corner on this incident” after days of concern about a possible explosion.
There has been no chemical leak as of early Monday, but the Orange County Fire Authority said the risk to public safety is “ongoing.”'
After the tank overheated Thursday and began venting vapors, firefighters have repeatedly sprayed the tank with water in an attempt to cool the chemical inside, methyl methacrylate, which is used to make plastic parts.
The tank's interior reached 100 degrees (37.7 Celsius) Sunday, an increase of 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 Celsius) since Saturday, according to Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg. On Monday, Covey said the temperature fell to 93 degrees F (33.9 degrees C).
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Saturday and said he asked President Donald Trump to issue an emergency declaration to bolster federal support for local and state officials.
The tank at GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, which makes parts for commercial and military aircraft, holds 6,000 to 7,000 gallons (22,700 to 26,500 liters) of methyl methacrylate used to make plastic parts.
The first goal of firefighters was to cool off the chemical inside the tank to prevent a leak or explosion.
Drones were monitoring temperatures at 10-minute intervals to watch for any spikes. Containment barriers were set up to prevent the chemical from getting into storm drains or reaching creeks or the nearby ocean in the event of a spill, Covey said earlier.
As the interior temperature rises, methyl methacrylate converts from a liquid to a gas and increases the pressure, according to Purdue University engineering professor Andrew Whelton, who had said earlier that the crack could mean product or pressure is being released, reducing the chance of explosion.
“Think of a soda can. If you leave it in a hot car it can explode,” Whelton said. “But if you put a hole in the can, the product is released and the can itself doesn’t explode.”
An explosion that could spread the chemical over a broad area and send shrapnel flying would be the worst-case scenario, he said.
Aerial photos taken by The Associated Press showed streets in the area were empty Sunday, while several evacuation shelters were open. At a high school in neighboring La Palma, people slept in cars or on mats and sleeping bags on the asphalt.
Garden Grove is next to Anaheim, home to Disneyland’s two theme parks, which were not under evacuation orders. Park officials said they were monitoring the situation.
Exposure to methyl methacrylate can cause serious respiratory problems, neurological problems and irritation to the skin, eyes and throat, according to fact sheets about the chemical.
Whelton said if an explosion occurs, it will be crucial to conduct detailed air monitoring specifically for methyl methacrylate and not just generic tests for volatile organic compounds as officials did after a 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which released more than 115,000 gallons (435,000 liters) of vinyl chloride after officials blew open five tank cars and burned the chemical.
Orange County health officials said the chemical is easy to smell and people may notice it over a large area without being harmed.
Some Garden Grove residents filed a class-action federal lawsuit Saturday against GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, which operates the facility where the tank is located. Lawyers for the residents argued that regardless of what happens, property values in the surrounding community are sure to be impacted.
GKN Aerospace did not comment on the lawsuit but has apologized to residents and businesses forced to evacuate. It said Sunday it was “working around the clock to mitigate the risk of a leak.”
GKN Aerospace agreed in 2025 to pay state regulators more than $900,000 to settle violations involving recordkeeping, permitting issues and nitrogen oxide emissions, according to a report on the South Coast Air Quality Management District website.
Associated Press journalist Ethan Swope in Garden Grove, California, contributed to this report.
An evacuation map is displayed at the incident command post at the Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, Calif., on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Water is sprayed on a damaged tank at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, Calif., on Sunday, May 24, 2026, after the tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
The streets remain empty in Garden Grove, Calif., on Sunday, May 24, 2026, after a storage tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday at an aerospace plastics facility. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Emergency personnel work at the incident command post at the Los Alamitos Race Course Sunday, May 24, 2026, in Cypress, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Water is sprayed on a damaged tank at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, Calif., on Sunday, May 24, 2026, after the tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
