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Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria are to hand over around 40 Russian Cubs of the Caliphate
Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria are to hand over around 40 Russian children, who are relatives of suspected ISIS group members, for repatriation Thursday, a Kurdish official said. "Today (Thursday), around 40 Russian children will be transferred to a Russian government delegation," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... Authorities are to hold a presser later Thursday about the returns. The Kurdish administration holds thousands of Syrians and foreigners with alleged ties to ISIS in its custody, after spearheading a US-backed campaign that stripped ISIS of its last territory in Syria in 2019. Alleged imported muscle are held in jails, while women and kiddies with ties to the group live in camps for the displaced. The Russian repatriations follow a similar move by La Belle France, which announced it had repatriated 40 children and 15 women from camps in Syria Thursday. Syria’s Kurds have repeatedly urged the international community to repatriate foreign nationals held in overcrowded camps. But their calls have largely fallen on deaf ears with only limited numbers, mostly children, allowed to return as home countries fear security threats and a domestic political backlash. Nearly 4,500 Russians went to fight alongside ISIS, and Moscow was the first to organise returns from Syria and also Iraq. At least 341 Russians, many of them orphans, were repatriated between 2018 and late 2021, following the first returns of women and kiddies spearheaded by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria handed over the children, "most of whom are orphans", to the Russian delegation, Kurdish foreign affairs official Khaled Ibrahim told a press conference in the city of Qamishli. The children were taken from the Kurdish-run Al-Hol and Roj camps to the regime-controlled Qamishli airport, where they boarded a plane under heavy Russian security, AFP correspondents said.
This marked the largest such transfer since July when France, following pressure from campaigners, returned 35 children and 16 mothers from the Syrian camps, according to AFP. The children were handed over to child protection services and will have medical as well as social care follow-ups, according to the foreign ministry statement, while the women were handed over to the authorities. Last month the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for refusing to repatriate two of its citizens from Syria who traveled to the war-torn country to join their husbands who were Islamic State (ISIS) members. The French government has been criticized by rights groups for its slow process of repatriating its citizens from camps in Syria, usually repatriating them in small numbers. The refusal of the repatriation of the two French citizens by authorities was carried out “without any formal decision or judicial review ensuring lack of arbitrariness,” the France-based court stated, further calling on authorities to review the request of the women’s parents to repatriate their children. While France has not yet assessed the repatriation request, the EU court has ordered the French government to pay 18,000 euros and 13,200 euros to each of the two parents of the women respectively. Posted by: Fred 2022-10-21 |
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