Germany to bring back 100 German ISIS children
Northern Syria
Mustafa Abdi
The German government appears to have reversed its previous attitude by refusing to receive any of its ISIS citizens or their families in Syria and Iraq. German Foreign Ministry has already stated that it won’t deal directly with northern Syria Autonomous Administration, although there are hundreds of German citizens who are detained in northeastern Syria.
According to special sources, a number of ISIS German orphans will be handed over to the German Foreign Ministry at Simalka border crossing today on Monday. This is the first return of more than 100 ISIS German children, in addition to dozens of men and women, who have been arrested or surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The camps in the north and east of Syria hold up to 12.000 foreigners, including 4.000 women and 8.000 children of foreign jihadist families, who reside in special sections and they are subject to severe security control, while this procedure doesn’t include the Iraqis.
Those foreigners place a heavy burden on the Autonomous Administration which demands the concerned countries to hand over their citizens. While few countries have received some members of the jihadist families, including large numbers such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Russia, and others in limited numbers such as Sudan, France, and the United States.
Many countries refuse to bring back their citizens such as France, but they have reversed and announced their willingness to receive the orphan children of the French jihadists, where it brought back five orphan children for the first time in March.
In addition to the camps, hundreds of foreign jihadists who have joined the extremist group are in SDF-run detention centers.
Observers fear that these prisons and the camps will be a reason for the group’s revival, where the SDF announced on March 23 that it had taken control of the last stronghold where ISIS militants were holed up in the town of Baghouz east of the country.
With the reluctance of the concerned countries to take back their jihadist citizens, the Kurds demanded to hold a special international tribunal to try them in northern Syria.
In addition to the foreigners of ISIS families, the IDP’s camps are sheltering tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis, most notably is al-Hawl camp which is a home for 74.000 people including 30.000 Syrians, the camp also hosts the families of foreign jihadists and others.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria announced on Sunday that about 800 women and children had started to leave al-Hawl camp by the guarantee of the tribal figures and dignitaries in the region, including members of the families of jihadists and other civilians.
The administration of al-Hawl camp began to transfer 800 ISIS families in phases, who registered their desire to return to their cities and villages in the cities of Raqqa and Tabqa.
The Autonomous Administration opened al-Hawl camp in mid-April 2016 in order to receive IDPs who were fleeing ISIS-controlled territories, and refugees from Iraqi border areas near the town of al-Hawl east of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.