RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – “My daughters are innocent. I want them to go to school just like other girls,” said Umm Khadija, a woman from Raqqa, north Syria. She was released from Hawl Camp along with her two daughters two years ago. She narrates her suffering with her stateless children who are deprived of citizenship because their father is an American.
The woman chose the name of Umm Khadija when talking to North Press. She married Russell Dennison, aka Abu Youssef al-Amriki, from the state of Florida. She lives in a one-room apartment in al-Mashlab neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Raqqa city. The locals cannot accept her for being a former ISIS member.
She is frustrated that she cannot apply for identification papers for her children because their father is a foreigner and hence they cannot attend school.
Umm Khadija is one of many women who gave birth to children from foreign ISIS militants. The Syrian law does not grant Syrian nationality to children through the mothers. Countries with nationals in Syria abstain from repatriating mothers with their children as it constitutes a violation of human rights law.
Registration dilemma
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) released Umm Khadija and others from Hawl Camp in October 2020 under the sponsorship of tribal leaders. At the time, she did not tell anyone about being married to a foreigner and that her children are not Syrians, fearing she would not be released along with her daughters from the camp.
She can easily move within the region as she has a Syrian ID, but her problem is with her children, whom she want to send to school. She said, “I do not have a family book, a marriage certificate or any written identification that proves the two girls are my daughters.”
During ISIS’ control of regions in north and east Syria between 2014 and 2018, many local women married foreign ISIS militants, some of whom were killed in battles while others were arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Umm Aysha, who is not different from Umm Khadija, married a Saudi ISIS member and had two children from him. She was later released from Hawl Camp under the same sponsorship.
She told North Press, “My house is close to the school. Every day, my daughter asks ‘Mom, why cannot I go to school like all these children’. It breaks my heart, especially since I cannot read or write so that I could teach her at home.”
“I tried to convince the teachers to admit her without identification papers but they refused to do so. My life has been ruined, but my children have nothing to do with that,” she added.
Number of children
In 2020, when the AANES announced releasing Syrian families who had wanted to leave the camp, civil society organizations formed committees concerned with following up on the status of the returnees and integrate them in their respective communities.
According to information obtained by North Press, many Syrian women who left the camp had been married to foreign ISIS members and had had children from them. The mothers are alive while the fathers are either killed or arrested.
AANES prisons hold 15,000 detainees charged with “terrorism” from over 60 foreign nationalities in addition to Syrians, most of whom are former members of ISIS, according to data released by the AANES.
North Press contacted the committees to obtain the number of children born to foreign fathers. The number of children are 30 in Raqqa, 20 in Tabqa, and 200 in Deir ez-Zor out of 300 children released from Hawl Camp. However, the committees could not obtain the number of children in Hasakah.
Bashar al-Karraf, director of Oxygen Youth, an organization advocating for civil peace and work in the reintegration of those returned from the camp, told North Press that the children’s numbers are not accurate.
He attributed that to the fact that the organizations operating in the region were not able to reach all the families. In addition, he said, some returnees conceal that they had been married to foreigners for fear of taking the children from them or sending them back to Hawl Camp.
Al-Karraf says that the process of reintegrating the returnees requires international efforts. “The organizations and the AANES are unable to solve this dilemma, since there are legal problems in terms of lacking marriage documents. Children are growing up unable to go to schools and the dilemma is still unresolved.”
How did they get out?
Sheikhmous Ahmad, an AANES official, says that returning families from the camp takes place in coordination with the concerned committees of the AANES. In order to return, families must have identification documents.
For having their identification documents with them, he added, the returnees can move freely within the AANES-held areas.
With regard to women married to foreigners, Sheikhmous said that the mother can leave the camp, but she cannot take her children with her.
Non-Syrian children are not allowed to leave the camp, “but women, during ISIS’ reign, married more than one man, and since it is difficult to determine the lineage of the child from the father’s side, women say that the husband was Syrian.”
According to Sheikhmous, any child who leaves the camp is registered by UN teams at the camp and by the civil administration there, adding that these children are Syrians, form both the father’s and mother’s side.
If a Syrian woman who had married a foreigner wanted to leave the camp, the children will be taken from her and handed over to organizations concerned with children’s rights at the camp. Then they will be transferred to an orphanage, according to Sheikhmous.
There are two orphanages in northeastern Syria, in which around 300 ISIS-linked children reside. Half of them have fathers of foreign nationalities and as for the other half both parents are foreigners.
Handing over children to their countries
The number of ISIS detainees in northeastern Syria, whether in camps or prisons, is the largest in the world. Camps hold around 60,137 ISIS-linked members, comprising 16,755 families. As for foreigners, there are 3,661 families of 60 different nationalities, in addition to about 10,000 militants in prisons.
Khaled Ibrahim, an official at the AANES Department of Foreign Relations, says that countries with nationals in northeastern Syria send a list of the names of their nationals of women and children to the department. “We, in turn, check these names in the camps and the rehabilitation centers, and then make sure they want to return to their homeland voluntarily without any pressure or coercion.”
With regard to children whose mothers are Syrians and whose fathers are foreigners, Ibrahim says, “If a state wants its children without their mothers, the AANES will not accept the request, as it goes against the laws of administration as well as the international humanitarian law, except in very exceptional cases such as cases of orphans and patients whom the administration cannot provide with treatment.”
During 2022, the Autonomous Administration handed over 515 members of ISIS-linked foreign families to their countries, comprising 129 women and 386 children. Since the beginning of 2023, it has handed over 256, comprising 211 girls and 45 women.
The need for updating the law
Lawyer Tariq al-Rashed says that the Syrian law prohibits a Syrian woman married to a foreigner from transmitting her citizenship to her children.
He added to North Press that the case of the returnees from Hawl Camp is considered a precedent, so an article must be created to address this issue.