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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — France said on Wednesday that it had repatriated seven “particularly vulnerable” children of Islamic State (ISIS) suspects from northeast Syria (Rojava).
"France proceeded on the morning of January 13 to bring back seven young children who were in northeast Syria," read a statement from the French foreign ministry.
"These minors, particularly vulnerable, were brought back in accordance with the authorization given by local authorities," the statement continued.
“The children were handed to French judicial authorities and are being looked after by social services”. The foreign ministry thanked Kurdish officials for making the repatriations happen.
The repatriation came a day after a French delegation led by Eric Chevallier, the director of the foreign ministry’s Crisis and Support Center, met with Kurdish authorities in Rojava.
“It is very important for us in Europe, especially France, as I come from France, to hear from the authorities in the region what is the situation, and what are the difficulties”, Chevallier, the former French ambassador to Syria told Abdulkarim Omar, head of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’s (NES) foreign office on Tuesday.
Zozan Hassan, head of media affairs for Omar’s office, told Rudaw English that the seven children were sent to France for “humanitarian and health" reasons, but declined to give more information on the repatriation.
A total of 34 French children have been repatriated from Rojava since 2019, according to Hassan; 17 in 2019, 10 in 2020 and seven in 2021. The French government has only repatriated children so far, she said.
Thousands of children of foreign nationals suspected to have been part of ISIS live in difficult conditions at the Roj and al-Hol detention camps in Rojava. Human rights groups have called camp conditions “filthy”, “often inhuman” and “life-threatening”.
Repatriation of children to their home countries has been slow, with many nations refusing to take children back except in exceptional circumstances. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Wednesday that the NES has handed over just over 150 foreign women and children to their countries of origin since the beginning of 2020.
The Collectif des Familles Unies (United Families Collective), a French group made up primarily of relatives of French detainees in the camps, said in a statement on Wednesday that the seven children were brought home from Roj camp.
With an estimated 200 French children still held at the camp, “this operation [repatriation] once more leaves behind the overwhelming majority of children, who are suffering and awaiting their return, but also sick women suffering from serious medical conditions,” the collective said.
“The incarceration of these children must be put to an end, once and for all, in accordance with security guidelines and with respect to law, human rights, and the rights of children.”
ISIS attacked both Syria and Iraq in 2014, taking control of swaths land. Thousands of men and women from Western countries joined the group to help establish the ISIS caliphate. When the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) supported by the global coalition against ISIS were beating the group back in 2018 and 2019, they put men suspected of fighting for ISIS in jail, and their wives and children in detention camps in Hasaka province.
Rojava officials have warned that leaving children to grow up in the camps could put them at risk of radicalization.
"Those children were aged 14 [when they were captured], but they have turned 18 or 19 now. They have become a generation that can help Daesh get stronger and regroup, creating a great threat again,” senior official Elham Ahmed said in November.
French armed forces minister Florence Parly said in a radio interview on Sunday that ISIS still poses a threat in Syria.
“We could even say that there is a kind of resurgence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq,” Parly said.
With reporting by Shahla Omar
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