A hundred children of jihadists still abandoned in Syria

The group return to France of 10 women and 25 children from camps in Syria under Kurdish control ten days ago could be the last. A decision by the French authorities, who have already repatriated since 2019 around sixty jihadist women and 169 children.

>> Repatriation of children of jihadists: “During these four and a half years, we let them waste away”, denounces the lawyer of two orphans

The reason invoked, from a diplomatic source, would be the impossibility of forcibly returning persons residing abroad. This final episode adds to the repatriations already organized by France since the fall of the Islamic State, first in a targeted way with orphans and minors whose mothers had agreed to separate, and then collectively since the summer. 2022.

The legal impossibility of a return?

In the column published by Le Monde, the families assure that there are solutions to save their grandchildren, nephews and nieces. They emphasize that the Kurdish authorities, who have been calling for these repatriations for years, are in a position to take the persons concerned “at the border of a third State, in particular Iraqi Kurdistan, where they would be expected by the French authorities”.

The family collective also denounces the illegal detention of French children in “adolescent prisons” where minors whose “the only crime is to be boys and to be 12 or 13 years old”.

Expel mothers and their children?

The families want the minors to arrive in France accompanied by their mothers, who would still be dozens to refuse to return.

The stubbornness of radicalized women, and their past in the service of the Islamic State, obviously do not encourage the Quai d’Orsay to bring them back. What affects the future of children. They have nothing to do with the sometimes criminal choices of their parents. A deadlocked situation, even if France, in the absence of new group returns, could study the fate of certain children on a case-by-case basis.