Kurdish authorities repatriate American, German children from Rojava
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —Local Kurdish authorities in Syria announced on Saturday that they handed over three German children, their mother and an American toddler to their respective governments, an official confirmed to Rudaw.
"We handed over three German children and their mother as well as an American toddler to their respective governments. Their government representatives were present when the handover protocol was signed," Abdulrehman Salman, member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), told Rudaw on Saturday.
Syrian Kurds are holding thousands of foreign women with suspected links to the Islamic State (ISIS), along with their children.
The German mother has been named as Laura H, 30, by magazine Der Spiegel and was said to have been living in Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria.
There are roughly 12,000 suspected ISIS fighters detained by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, including some 2,000 foreigners. 70,000 women affiliated with the group and their children are held in camps across the region.
The repatriation of foreign nationals has sparked hot debate in Europe and beyond, particularly in cases involving children.
European countries, fearful their radicalized citizens could pose a security risk if they are permitted to return, have in many cases refused to take them back. Special dispensation has been given in the case of unaccompanied minors, however.
France, Belgium, Germany and Denmark are some of the several countries who have taken back children born to ISIS-affiliated parents.
"We do not have a solid figure on the Daesh children because the number keeps changing. But recently, we hold more than 7000 Daesh children," Salman said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
He added they have so far handed over "around 400 foreign Daesh children to their countries."
According to AFP, the American toddler, reported to be three years old, was handed over to US officials at the Semalka border crossing on the Iraqi Kurdistan border.
The American child was reportedly the daughter of the German woman's first husband, who was a US citizen, according to Germany's Bild newspaper.
The United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) has described the orphans of foreign fighters as the world’s most vulnerable children.
UNICEF also reported on November 4 that 28,000 children from more than 60 countries remain trapped in the region, mostly in displacement camps. This includes almost 20,000 from Iraq.
Britain repatriated a number of British orphans from Syria earlier this week.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described the repatriation as “the right thing to do,” adding that the children born of terrorist fighters should “never have been subjected to the horrors of war.”
In the summer of 2014, ISIS overran large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Thousands of foreigners traveled from across Europe, the Americas, and Asia to build or fight for the so-called caliphate.
Following the collapse of the caliphate earlier this year,many women and children ended up in overcrowded camps managed by Kurdish forces.
Fears of an ISIS resurgence have grown since the Turkish incursion began in northern Syria early last month.
ISIS militants and their families exploited the resulting chaos and escaped from SDF-controlled camps and prisons in Ain Issa.