France Repatriates ISIS-Linked Woman and Children from Syrian Camp

As soon as she returned to France, she was arrested and presented to an investigating judge because she was the subject of an arrest warrant, according to the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat). For the moment, her children have been taken care of as part of a child welfare procedure.

Her lawyer is delighted and pleads for the others still detained in Syrian camps and in atrocious conditions. "I am pleased that two children, one of whom is very ill, have been repatriated with their mother and escaped the worst. But arbitrariness is rampant. Why them and not others? So many children are as sick as this little boy, and some even more," laments Me Marie Dosé.

For the lawyer, "the Elysée explains that the case-by-case doctrine is over and persists in sorting out the children, and acting in the greatest opacity. And the orphans left in the camps whose repatriation I have been demanding for more than three years? France has just been condemned by the ECHR and remains stubborn in its inhumanity," she added. She is not the only one to denounce France’s policy towards French detainees in the camps in Syria. The Collective of United Families has also reacted. "We are moving from a case-by-case policy to a lottery, it is incomprehensible and scandalous".

The first major repatriation carried out by France took place on July 5. 35 minors and 16 mothers detained in jihadist prisoner camps in Syria. Faced with the complaints of the families and the reminder to order in September last year by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that it was ready to "consider" new repatriations "whenever the conditions would allow it".