“We have to make sure that justice and politics are not mixed up,” Philippe Vansteenkiste told reporters in Brussels. “The longer the situation remains as it is, the more difficult it becomes for all of us.”
Vansteenkiste’s sister was killed in an ISIS attack on Brussels airport on March 22, 2016. He now works as an advocate for victims of terror as the co-founder and director of Victims-Europe, Belgium.
He was part of a group of researchers and child psychologists who visited Rojava, northern Syria recently to meet with 15 Belgian children and their mothers living in camps run by Kurdish authorities.
The Belgians are some of the 790 foreign ISIS fighters, 584 women, and 1,248 children from 46 different countries being held by Kurds, according to figures given by Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations for the Rojava administration at the press conference.
Foreign governments have largely resisted repatriating their nationals accused of joining ISIS and now sitting in prisons or camps in Rojava.
As a victim of terror, Vansteenkiste stressed the need to prioritize justice.
“We are looking for truth and justice, and this is necessary for us to digest what we have been through and to start a new life,” he explained.
And to get justice, “we need facts.”
He pointed to several cases of prosecution of ISIS members that failed because just the fact that they had travelled to Syria was insufficient to build a legal case. He suggested forming a special task force to work on this with the Rojava administration.
Professor Gerrit Loots, a psychologist specializing in children victims of conflict, also traveled to Rojava and spoke at the press conference.
He dismissed as “nonsense” arguments floating around Europe that the ISIS wives and children pose a security risk and so should not be repatriated. Some of the children he visited are seriously ill and may not survive the winter in a camp.
Refusing to bring them back risks killing them, he said. “This refusal is becoming an act far beyond the borders of humanity. I think we can call it a crime against humanity.”
The children need specialized care, they need to go to school, and they must not be separated from their mothers to whom they are strongly attached, he said.
These children can recover if they are in a “safe environment,” he asserted.
Kurds have refused to prosecute the foreign ISIS members and are demanding the respective governments take responsibility.
In the war against ISIS, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have given “over 8,000 martyrs. There are also now more than 5,000 fighters who are disabled,” Omar detailed.
They have fought not just for their own security but for the safety of the whole world because ISIS is a global threat. Kurds have been allies of the west militarily, and “today we should also work together in other fields,” especially on the issue of foreign ISIS members, he said.
“We cannot do this alone,” said Omar.
“We hope these countries will fulfill their moral and legal responsibilities.”
