The children, aged between 3 and 15, had been living at al-Hol and Roj camps in Rojava, administered by Kurdish-led authorities. They were flown home on a Russian defence ministry plane, landing at Chkalvosky airport near Moscow.
The children were taken to a medical facility for examination, and will be subject to a coronavirus quarantine. Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova said in a statement released by the body she directs that she hoped that “the children would find themselves in a warm home environment on New Year’s Eve”.
Russia has repatriated 144 children in 2020, the Commissioner’s statement said.
Repatriations to Russia were paused at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic early this year, but resumed in August. There have been five flights since.
Since 2017, 274 Russian children have been repatriated from Iraq and Syria, the two countries swarmed upon by Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the summer of 2014. Thousands of foreign nationals flocked to Iraq and Syria to fight or serve ISIS – some bringing their children with them, while others had children under the rule of the caliphate.
The statement said that 152 of the Russian children repatriated since 2017 have come from Syria.
Tens of thousands of people live in al-Hol and Roj, most of whom are women and children who either fled or were rounded up as ISIS began to lose ground in the country from 2017 onwards. Around 10,000 of those held at the camps are non-Iraqi foreigners.
Kurdish authorities who administer the camps have repeatedly appealed for international assistance, and have called on countries to take responsibility for their citizens. Elham Ahmed, president of the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council, warned that a generation of children was growing up in the camps “that can help Daesh [ISIS] get stronger and regroup, creating a threat again.”
There are no exact figures on the number of ISIS-linked Russian children currently in Iraq and Syria, but Kheda Saratova, a repatriation activist and advisor to Chechen leader Ramazan Kadyrov estimated in February 2019 that there could be as many as 1,400.
There are 96 Russian children in Syria who now have the necessary documentation to fly home, the Commissioner’s statement said. There are also 36 children in Turkey, believed to have travelled across the border after leaving al-Hol camp, who are undergoing testing to determine whether or not they are Russian, according to the statement.
A nine-year-old Belgian child was repatriated earlier this week – but separated from his mother, who remains at Roj camp. His father, who lives in Belgium, has not seen him since he left for Syria with his mother at three years old. The repatriation followed a Belgian delegation visit to Rojava in early December, where the return home of ISIS-linked Belgian nationals – termed “terrorists” by a Belgian parliamentarian part of the delegation – was discussed.
A joint operation last week saw the repatriation of 15 people Germany – seven orphans, plus three women with five children – and two adult mothers with six children to Finland.
