Syria’s AANES repatriates Canadian child at mother’s request
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Wednesday, the Information Office of the Foreign Affairs Department in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) released a declaration in response to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) regarding the repatriation of a four-year-old Canadian child to her country.
On Tuesday, HRW mentioned, “The four-year-old child was repatriated to her homeland in Canada from a miserable detention camp in northeast Syria.”
“We read the report by HRW regarding repatriating the four-year-old Canadian child,” the Information Office declared on its official website.
“In AANES, we work according to international laws that prohibit separating children from their mothers, except in special humanitarian cases when we obtain a written approval by the mother and under her request,” the statement added.
“Her rescue came at a wrenching price. Canada agreed to let the girl come home but not her Canadian mother, who had traveled to Syria and married an Islamic State (ISIS) member. Mother and daughter have no idea when they will be reunited,” HRW pointed out.
The Information Office pointed out that they “are keen to see these children be transferred into a healthy environment in which they are rid of ISIS’s radical mentality.”
“Due to the child’s health condition, we repatriated her on Friday, March 12, at her mothers’ request, after she signed a written approval according to an official repatriation document,” the office added.
“If I had to choose again, I don’t know if I would have done it,” the mother said regarding her decision to let her daughter go. “It’s the hardest sacrifice for a mother to make,” according to HRW.
The mother of the repatriated Canadian girl says she has not committed any crimes in Syria, but is ready to be judged if the process is fair. “I am willing to make amends for my actions and stand trial, I just need to be home to do that,” she told HRW.
According to a February statement from UNICEF, which called for children to be rescued from these detention camps, there are “more than 22,000 foreign children of at least 60 nationalities who languish in camps and prisons, in addition to many thousands of Syrian children.”
Meanwhile, the European Union has called on all of the counties in the EU to repatriate European children currently in the Syrian camps.
On March 25, 2019 two days after liberating al-Baghouz and eliminating ISIS, AANES called for establishing an international court of an international character to try these accused.
So far, no response has been made and no country has shown willingness to cooperate with AANES regarding the issue.
It is worth mentioning that north and east Syria includes several camps with thousands of Syrian IDPs, Iraqi refugees, and ISIS families and wives such as Hawl Camp in Hasakah and Roj Camp in Derik countryside.
Hawl Camp, which is witnessing several killing cases, is known as “a time bomb” due to the existence of ISIS families and tens of thousands of their loyal members in a camp which is the most dangerous in the world.