European court urges France to repatriate Daesh-linked family in Syria
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has called on France to repatriate two French citizens who joined the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria, saying Paris has violated human rights.
Reports said on Saturday that one of the women died in Syria and her two children are currently being held in a detention camp north of the Arab country.
The two women traveled to Syria to join the ranks of the terror group and had children there.
The second woman currently lives along with her child in the Al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria, run by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of mainly US-sponsored Kurdish forces fighting against Damascus in northern and eastern Syria.
France has so far refused to take action to repatriate the family members.
According to the ECHR’s ruling, France’s refusal to send home the woman and children constituted a violation of their rights to “enter the territory of the state of which (one) is a national.”
The grandparents of the children have argued that their grandchildren, who have been prevented from reentering France, are facing inhumane living conditions in the SDF-run camps they live in.
The French Foreign Ministry and Presidency have rejected the grandparents’ initial appeal given that the “individuals concerned had deliberately left to join a terrorist organization.”
The ECHR says France’s refusal to repatriate its citizens violates Protocol No. 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that nationals must not be prevented from entering their home state.
“The verdict is long overdue. France, as well as the other 60 countries with citizens unlawfully detained and left behind in camps and prisons in Northeast Syria, must now take urgent action,” said Beatrice Erikson, the founder of Repatriate the Children Sweden.
Innumerable foreign individuals who used to be members of Daesh and their families remain inside SDF-run detention centers north of Syria, namely the infamous Al-Hawl camp and the Al-Roj camp.
The Al-Hawl camp is located on the southern outskirts of the town of al-Hawl in Syria’s energy-rich Hasakah province, where US occupation forces and its allied militants are actively present. Thousands of foreigners from more than 60 countries currently live in Al-Hawl’s “migrant sector.”
Iraq has recently begun to repatriate citizens from Al-Hawl, albeit at a slow rate.
Up to 1,700 French nationals are thought to have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Takfiri terrorists between 2014 and 2018, according to government figures. About 300 are believed to have died in combat.
