“We want them to forget that they are potential bombs”, the delicate rehabilitation of children of jihadists

In the middle of the courtyard of this Syrian camp, behind the large gray door in the shade of barbed wire, an 11-year-old Frenchwoman is playing with her Chechen, Swedish, Iranian, Russian or English classmates. This rehabilitation center for Daesh children, run by Kurdish forces, is located in the northeast of the country, very close to the city of Hassaké.

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Here live about sixty children, including a few French children. Their jihadist mothers are imprisoned a few dozen meters away. Without sufficient financial aid, the Kurds nevertheless do what they can to accommodate these children.

All these children spend their days in this centre. On the program: sports and mathematics lessons in the morning, English and science lessons in the afternoon. During breaks, they are allowed to watch cartoons, play with each other and hang out in the yard. When the day is over, they return to their mothers’ cells to spend the night there.

The director of the center, Perwin Husseun El Ali, ensures that the major difficulty is to manage to obtain the confidence of these children. Fortunately, behaviors seem to change over time,”especially among the youngest because they are not yet recruited“. She also notes positive developments:Before, they were very aggressive with each other and now they play together. We just want them to forget that they are potential bombs and become children again.”

However, despite the progress, these children are not destined to stay in this center, believes the director: “They must be able to go home with their mother because it is not acceptable to separate them. They cannot stay in prison forever because they will become more and more radical. We must react now“.

The Defender of Rights asks the government for the repatriation, as soon as possible, of all the French children detained in the camps in the northeast of Syriahttps://t.co/XEGPJZPeyV

— Defender of rights (@Defenseurdroits) April 29, 2022

In total, according to estimates, it would be necessary to have several hundred centers like that of Hassaké to take care of the 30,000 children languishing in the Al-Hol camp, known to house the most radical mothers.

For his part, the Kurdish co-secretary for Foreign Affairs, Doctor Abdulkarim Omar, whom franceinfo was able to meet, notes with concern the return of Daesh, since the largest prison in the region was violently attacked by the jihadists, in last January, killing 373 people. “The attack on the prison was massive, but the problem goes beyond that“, he worries. “The Islamic State has sleeper cells on the ground, they are reorganizing, all because the international community is not taking responsibility“.

The Kurds assure that they will not be able to continue to manage the camps and prisons without additional financial aid. They ask the different countries to come and get their nationals, at the risk of seeing them escape or having to let them go.