Moroccan Women in Syrian Prisons Plea for King Mohammed VI’s Intervention

Sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes they say they never committed, these women have recounted the hell they have endured in Syrian and Iraqi prisons. Their letters, relayed by the National Coordination of Families of Detainees and Moroccans Stranded in Syria, say a lot about the deplorable conditions in which they are incarcerated.

"I call on the Kingdom of Morocco and King Mohammed VI to help us and repatriate us to our beloved country. We are tortured here and the conditions are deplorable due to hunger and lack of health care. My immunity is too weak and my daughter often falls ill. The prison administration is predisposed to repatriate the children who are the subject of a request from their country. To keep her from the orphanage, I ask the Moroccan authorities to repatriate my daughter," says A.R., a 24-year-old woman detained in Iraq with her two daughters.

Incarcerated for 3 years in an Iraqi prison, the young woman and her Moroccan cellmate, 2 years her senior, believe they were misled by their husbands, who died on the battlefield. "We are against the ideology of the Islamic State Daesh. A dark universe that we fled despite our pregnancy. Our children were born in prison. We regret our actions, and beg Your Majesty to lend us a hand and pull us out of this abyss," she added.