Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

France Repatriates 35 Children, 16 Mothers From Syria Camps


Tue 05 Jul 2022 | 06:52 PM
Ahmad El-Assasy

The foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that France had returned 35 children and 16 moms from facilities in Syria where relatives of suspected ISIS group fighters were being kept.

"35 French kids who were staying in camps in northeast Syria are being returned to France today as part of a French initiative. 16 moms from these same camps are also being brought back as part of this operation "announced a statement.

The minors were given to child welfare agencies, who would also keep an eye on their health. The appropriate judicial authorities received the mothers.

According to AFP, the French foreign ministry expressed gratitude to the local government in northeast Syria for cooperating to make the operation possible.

The governments of France and other Western nations have long been encouraged by human rights organisations to repatriate the children who were either carried to the regions of Syria and Iraq that were formerly under ISIS' control by their parents or were born there during the years of fighting.

In northeast Syria, where starvation and sickness are rampant, Kurdish-run facilities are housing hundreds of youngsters who are French citizens.

According to a Save the Children report published in September 2021, one of the largest and most populated is Al-Hol, where children were witnessing "devastating levels of violence daily, resulting to nightmares, psychological issues, and dread for their own life."

According to the survey, Al Hol was one of the most dangerous places in the world for children to be born last year, with an average of more than two deaths each week.

Following a string of terrorist attacks, notably the 130-person-dead attacks in November 2015 on the Bataclan concert hall and other locations in and around Paris, France has claimed that its security concerns are of the utmost importance.

Many of the children are with their dangerous moms or fathers, and France has insisted that they be prosecuted locally. Prior to the operation on Tuesday, France had returned 126 kids since 2016.