“At the request of the French government, the self-administration of North and East Syria [NES] handed over on June 9, 2019, 12 orphaned French children from ISIS families to a delegation from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the town of Ain Issa,” Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of the NES Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted Monday.
Among the 12 French children are the son and daughter of Yassine Sakkam – one of the French ISIS fighters recently condemned to death by an Iraqi court.
Their mother, who is being held by Kurdish authorities in Syria, has given her permission for the children to be repatriated to France, according to Le Parisien.
The other 10 children are orphans.
Later, Omar announced the Netherlands is also taking steps to repatriate two children.
“At the request of the Dutch Government, the self-administration of North and East Syria handed over on June 9, 2019, two orphaned Dutch children from ISIS families to a delegation from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the town of Ain Issa,” he added.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in a statement on Monday that two “very young” Dutch children were also on the plane to Vélizy-Villacoublay military air base, 13 kilometers from Paris, who will be sent to the Netherlands.
The NES is the self-administrated region in northeast Syria known to Kurds as Rojava.
The predominately-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its political arm of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) partnered with the US-led international anti-ISIS coalition to defeat the extremists militarily east of the Euphrates.
The SDF has said repeatedly it is incapable of dealing with the 73,000 people sheltered at al-Hol camp. Some 91 percent of the camp’s displaced people are women and children.
The camp is home to many ISIS widows and their children. Some of the minors were born in Syria, while others were brought by their parents to the so-called caliphate.
France thanked the NES for its “cooperation which made the repatriation possible” in Monday’s statement.
“The decision to repatriate was made taking into account the situation of these particularly vulnerable young children,” it added.
France previously has said it would not carry out a general repatriation of the estimated 500 children born to French parents.
However, close to 100 children of ISIS prisoners have been returned to France since 2014, with decisions taken on “a case-by-case basis”, a government source told Le Parisien.
Repatriation and justice varies greatly by country. The United States has called on all coalition members to repatriate their nationals.
On June 2, Norway announced the repatriation of five children from Syria, while Uzbekistan repatriated 148 women and children in late May.
Both the French and the Dutch delegation have emphasized their full support for the self-administration in northern and northeastern Syria.
The French delegation reiterated its “readiness to provide all types of diplomatic, political, and military support”, referencing two upcoming meetings with a group of countries supporting Rojava’s self-administration this month.
The Dutch delegation, for its part, carried a message from the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs voicing its support for the establishment of an international court to put ISIS members on trial within the self-administrated area.
Upon landing, the children are to receive medical checks and be handed over to social care workers before efforts to find them host families begin.
Updated: 6.44 p.m.
