Pascale Descamps, a 55-year-old grandmother from the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France, has been on hunger strike since February 1. Her 32-year-old daughter, a mother of four living in northeast Syria’s Roj camp, was diagnosed with colon cancer at a hospital in the city of Qamishli in November, Descamps said.
Five days into her hunger strike, Descamps told Rudaw English that her daughter’s condition has worsened considerably since her diagnosis.
“She’s constantly losing blood, her tumor has grown… she’s only able to consume liquids,” Descamps said. Though ill-equipped camp doctors are checking up on her, “she currently isn’t receiving any medical treatment.”
The doctor in Qamishli who diagnosed her “told her that she needed to be operated on urgently, but that if it were to be conducted in that hospital, she would not survive,” Descamps told French outlet Liberation. “He advised her to demand that she be repatriated.”
Descamps is also concerned for the welfare of her daughter’s four children, aged between 2 and 11, who are “by the side of their very sick mother”. With the mother almost incapacitated, the eldest of her children, a girl, is raising the three younger siblings alone, Emmanuel Daoud, one of Descamps’ lawyers told Franceinfo.
Descamps previously spoke to Rudaw English, then anonymously, about her daughter’s story, and her attempts to have her daughter and grandchildren repatriated from northeast Syria. Her daughter left for Syria with her husband and three children in 2015 to join ISIS. When widowed, she took her three children and newborn baby to al-Hol, where tens of thousands of wives of ISIS members were housed as the caliphate fell.
Descamps and other relatives of detainees, as well as human rights organisations have spoken of dire conditions at camps in northeast Syria, including poor sanitation and food provisions, and the urgent need for repatriations. In late 2019, the Kurdish-led authorities in Rojava began moving “low-risk” detainees from al-Hol to the smaller camp Roj – including Descamps’ daughter and grandchildren.
Like other European countries, France is only repatriating its nationals deemed most vulnerable – children who are orphans or in need of medical treatment. So far, just 35 of an estimated 250 French children who have been living at the camps have been repatriated. Roughly 60 French women are believed to be held at al-Hol and Roj.
There had been hope that the appointment of French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti last year would see repatriations sped up. Dupond-Moretti, formerly a prominent lawyer, said before his appointment that all French detainees – men, women, and children – should be brought back to their country of origin, with adults put on trial in France for their suspected crimes.
However, just seven children have been brought back from France since he took on the role.
In what may offer a glimpse of hope to the Descamps family, Dupond-Moretti told Franceinfo earlier this week that the justice ministry is following the case of the cancer sufferer “very closely”. However, he cast doubt on whether the current domestic political situation would allow for repatriations to happen.
“There’s the response of the heart, then there’s the response that’s possible,” he said.
France’s steadfast refusal to repatriate its nationals appears to stem from a difference in opinion between the foreign and justice ministries, a source told Rudaw English in July.
Though Dupond-Moretti and his justice minister predecessor Nathalie Belloubet have both made strong statements in support of repatriation, foreign minister Jean Yves Le Drian has said repeatedly that France would only act on a case-by-case basis – despite his own admission that conditions at al-Hol camp were like “a pressure cooker that risks exploding”.
Descamps told Franceinfo that she hadn’t heard “anything at all” from the French foreign ministry since her daughter’s cancer diagnosis in November. Before the diagnosis, she said she and other relatives of detainees had received almost identical messages from lower-level staff.
Repatriations of ISIS-linked detainees in Syria and in Iraq, even of children, appear to be extremely unpopular among the public, making repatriations politically risky for the French government to take. Far-right politician Marine Le Pen, who has expressed fervent opposition to repatriations, has made gains in public opinion polls.
Descamps lives with her husband, who is keeping tabs on her health. She also has other relatives who live nearby to offer help if needed. Though “tired”, she said she will continue her hunger strike until there is definite change to her daughter’s circumstances.
“I’ll keep going until my daughter is repatriated”.
