PARIS, July 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France has repatriated 35 children and 16 mothers from camps in Syria where family members of suspected Daesh jihadists have been held, the foreign ministry said.
“France has today undertaken the return to the country of 35 French minors who were in camps in northeast Syria. This operation also includes the return of 16 mothers from these same camps,” a statement said, adding that the minors were handed over to child protection services while the mothers would face judicial proceedings.
Thousands of foreign citizens are currently held in camps in northern Syrian, administered by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF have increasingly called for countries to repatriate their citizens as unrest has continued to build in the camps, spurred on by suspected IS activity.
Last month the UN said that more than 100 people, including many women, had been murdered in Syria’s Al-Hol camp in just 18 months.
The Al-Hol camp is increasingly unsafe and the child detainees are being condemned to a life with no future, said Imran Riza, the UN resident coordinator in Syria.
Al-Hol, in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, was meant as a temporary detention facility.
However, it still holds about 56,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, some of whom maintain links with the Daesh, which seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The rest are citizens of other countries, including children and other relatives of Daesh fighters. — NNN-AGENCIES
