ISIS’ fall left northeast Syria devasted. There are few sources that authoritatively demonstrate the total number of people killed by ISIS. A report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights documented 17,868 direct conflict-related deaths of combatants and civilians at the hands of ISIS in a decade of war in Syria.[1] The true death total was considered to be far higher, as many deaths may have gone undocumented. The count also did not include the number of people maimed or wounded. As UNOHCHR observed, “it is likely that due to the intensity of the crimes and terrorizing acts of [ISIS], the documentation efforts became less representative of the scale of the hostilities occurring.”[2] Across Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir Ezzor, where ISIS operated for years, the estimated number of civilians killed was at least twice the number of documented.[3] Nor did this figure include “indirect deaths” resulting from loss of access to essential goods and services, which evidently occurred throughout the areas under ISIS’ control.[4] Such was ISIS’ legacy.
By 2022, there remained 120,000 individuals in 11 camps and 20 prison facilities in the area—many of them women and children living in dire camp settings among hardened ISIS supporters. The possibility that ISIS could re-emerge remained a serious, long-term security.[5]