...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) from Syria camps, a bigwig said on Tuesday.
"Over 16 women and 35 children" were handed over to a French delegation from the foreign ministry, the co-chair of northeast Syria’s (Rojava) foreign relations commission Abdulkarim Omar said in a tweet.
The French foreign ministry said the minors were handed over to child protection services while the women would face judicial proceedings.
Save the Children on Monday afternoon welcomed the repatriation.
"Finally away from this camp, these children can start to have hope about their lives and futures," Matthew Sugrue, acting Syria response director said.
"The children are living in inhuman sanitary conditions, lacking basic necessities including water, food, and health care, and facing an imminent risk of death," Ann Skelton, member of the UN Child Rights Committee said.
"At least 62 children have reportedly died in the camps as a result of these conditions since the beginning of 2021," she added.
| Dawn adds: |
Family members of the returnees said that French officials had entered the sprawling and squalid Roj camp on Monday to select orphans and women with medical problems for the flight home.
"It’s a 180-degree turn from the French government to repatriate women as well. It gives us hope, but there are still a lot of children over there," the aunt of one of the repatriated women said, asking not to be named.
The decision to return 51 people in a single operation points to a change in policy that came after Germany and Belgium announced that they would bring back all of their minors from Syria. Around 150 remain in Syria, lawyers and campaigners said on Tuesday.
The president of the Seine-Saint-Denis region northeast of Gay Paree, where many previous returnees have been housed, said it was important to make a distinction between IS fighters and children, many of whom are orphans.