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PARIS (AP) — French authorities on Tuesday repatriated 51 ladies and kids from the previous Islamic State group-controlled areas in Syria, in keeping with an announcement from the nationwide counterterrorism prosecutor’s workplace.
It’s the one largest return of ladies and kids to France from camps in northeastern Syria for the reason that territorial defeat of IS in March 2019. France noticed extra of its residents go away to affix the group than every other nation in Europe.
Tuesday’s group was made up of 16 ladies, ages 22 to 39, and 35 minors, seven of whom are coming to France unaccompanied by adults. All however two of the ladies within the group are French residents. Twelve ladies returned with their kids and 4 of the ladies had beforehand agreed to the return of their kids, in keeping with the prosecutor’s assertion.
Eight ladies have been taken into custody for questioning and the opposite eight have been detained on arrest warrants. The kids have been positioned within the care of the kid protecting providers connected to the Versailles Judicial Court docket.
One of many 35 minors is in police custody on suspicion of collaborating in actions of a terrorist legal enterprise, in keeping with the prosecutor’s assertion. The minor will shortly flip 18, the assertion stated.
Many European nations have been gradual to permit the return of ladies and kids for concern they’d violently activate their homelands. France, which noticed extra of its residents be part of IS in Syria than every other European nation and suffered a number of lethal assaults starting in 2015, has been particularly reluctant.
French authorities have insisted that adults, women and men, who fought with IS must be prosecuted within the nation the place they’d dedicated crimes. Authorities additionally insisted on bringing again residents and their kids on a case-by-case foundation, an extended and cumbersome process that has been repeatedly criticized by human rights teams.
In December, a 28-year-old Frenchwoman with diabetes died within the Roj camp in Syria, leaving her 6-year-old daughter an orphan, in keeping with the household’s lawyer, who had been requesting their return since 2019.
The orphaned woman was within the group of kids repatriated on Tuesday, in keeping with an announcement by the United Households Collective, a bunch of households that has been campaigning for repatriations of ladies and kids detained within the Kurdish-controlled camps of Syria and Iraq.
The United Households Collective hailed the federal government’s repatriation effort and urged the French authorities to proceed bringing dwelling kids and moms trapped in “inhumane” and “degrading” residing circumstances on the detention camps.
The collective stated there have been nonetheless 150 French kids and their moms trapped within the Roj camp.
“France should repatriate (them) as quickly as doable (…) and shut this shameful chapter in our historical past directly,” the group’s assertion stated.
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