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Syria
German national Leonora, who fled fighting between Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Islamic State (ISIS) in Baghouz, Syria on January 31, 2019. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Germany is set to take back over a hundred children born to suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members as well as “scores of men and women,” according to a local monitor in northern Syria, in would be the largest scale repatriation of ISIS-linked nationals by a European country to date.
“On Monday, a number of German orphans born to ISIS members will be handed over to the German Foreign Ministry at the Semalka border crossing,” read a Sunday tweet from Rojava Information Center (RIC), an organization with ties to the ruling Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (NES).
The repatriations will be Germany’s first, with “over 100 ISIS-linked German children, plus scores of men & women” held by the NES set to be returned, RIC added.
Incapable of managing the tens of thousands of ISIS suspects, spouses and children, the NES, often referred to as Rojava, has called on the international community to take back their nationals.
Over 11,000 foreign women and children live in “dire conditions” at Al-Hol camp - which holds the families of some ISIS suspects - in northern Syria, according to a report by Human Rights Watch in late July.
Tensions between those detained at the camp and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who control it have reached boiling point, with attacks on camp guards and protests against camp conditions.
French newspaper Le Monde reported in February that 800 Western men, 700 women, and some 1,500 of their children are estimated to be held in SDF camps.
The US government has insisted on European countries’ wide scale repatriation of citizens suspected of ISIS membership, or born of suspected ISIS members.
Some countries, like Belgium, France and the Netherlands, are repatriating the children of ISIS fighters in Syria on a “case by case basis.”
A German court ordered the repatriation of an ISIS wife and their three children in July after the family sued Germany's foreign ministry, who intended to repatriate the children without their mother.
Germany has repatriated several children from facilities in Iraq, controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) security forces, in April.
"The number of minors already brought back to Germany [from Iraq] has reached a high single-digit figure," a source from the Foreign Ministry told AFP.
Monday’s repatriation would make a significant dent in the estimate of 117 children who are likely German nationals being held in detention centers in Syria and Iraq, as reported by German channel WDR in June.
Rudaw English contacted the German Foreign Ministry for a comment on the repatriation, but has yet to receive a response.
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