France repatriates 37 minors from camps in northeast Syria

July 5. () –

The French authorities have repatriated 35 minors of French nationality from camps in northeastern Syria, in an operation that has also included the transfer of 16 mothers, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Minors have been made available to French social services and will undergo a medical examination, while women will be held accountable to judicial authorities to determine whether they may have committed a crime.

The Gallic Government, which has already carried out several repatriations of this type, has thanked the collaboration of the local authorities in a statement.

NGOs have urged foreign governments to speed up repatriations from camps in northeastern Syria, where thousands of people live in a kind of limbo over the possibility that they were linked in some way to terrorist groups.

The camps house some 18,000 Iraqi children, as well as another 7,300 more from 60 other countries, including several Western ones, according to Save The Children, which estimates that it would take 30 years to complete the repatriations at the current rate.

The organizations have warned that there are no minimum living conditions in the camps. In Al Hol, 74 children died in 2021 alone, including eight victims of violent incidents.