France singled out by the UN. Paris has violated the rights of French children detained in camps in Syria by failing to repatriate them, said Thursday, February 24 a UN committee responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by its States Parties.
This committee, made up of 18 independent experts, was responsible for examining three complaints lodged by a group of French nationals whose grandchildren, nieces and nephews are currently detained in the Roj, Aïn Issa and Hol camps, which are under the control of Kurdish forces. The three cases concern 49 French children, whose parents allegedly collaborated with the Islamic State group. Some were born in Syria, while others traveled there with their French parents at a very young age.
Since the relatives took their case to the committee in 2019, the French government has repatriated 11 of these children. The 38 other victims, some of whom are only 5 years old, are still being held in closed camps in a war zone.
The fact that France did not repatriate the children carries, according to the committee, “undeniably undermines the protection of their best interests since it results in their continued and indefinite detention in the camps, in conditions threatening their survival and their physical integrity, (…) and where there is a risk of ‘indoctrination”.
The UN committee believes that “France has the responsibility and the power to protect French children in Syrian camps against an imminent risk to their lives by taking measures to repatriate them”. It further considers that the prolonged detention of child victims in life-threatening conditions also amounts to “inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”.
The committee urges France to take urgent measures to repatriate the 38 children, together with their mothers, “in order to preserve the family environment”. In the meantime, he asks the French authorities “to take additional measures to mitigate the risks to the life, survival and development of child victims during their stay in northeastern Syria”.