LONDON (Al Jazeera) – The reintegration into society of thousands of children repatriated from Kurdish-run camps in northeast Syria for suspected members of Daesh terrorists is being made more difficult by the policies of several mainly-European governments, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
“Our interviews and surveys found that while many children are reintegrating successfully into their new communities, policy choices by some governments have made reintegration more difficult, and in some cases, even caused additional harm,” the New York-based organization said in a new report released on Monday
HRW said in some countries, including Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, “authorities have immediately separated children from their mothers upon their return, either because the mother is subject to investigation or is being charged with Daseh-related offenses”.
“Some interviewees said that the most traumatic experience in the lives of their children was not the hardships of the camps, but separation from their mothers upon arrival in their new home country,” the group added.
The report is based on the experiences of more than 100 children, aged between two and 17, who were brought back – or, in some cases, brought for the first time – to their country of nationality between 2019 and 2022. The majority were repatriated or returned from northeast Syria, and a small number were returned from Iraq.
In 2019, when the Daesh’s last stronghold in Baghouz, in northeast Syria, was toppled the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) transferred thousands of people who had been living under Daesh to makeshift prisons and detention camps. The detainees included suspected male Daesh terrorists and their relatives from more than 60 countries.
Since 2019, about three dozen countries have repatriated or facilitated the return of some of their detained nationals, including more than 1,500 children, according to HRW. Denmark, Finland, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Russia, Sweden, Tajikistan, Ukraine, the U.S., and Uzbekistan are among some of the countries that have now repatriated many or most of their nationals.
HRW said as of September 2022, the SDF still held approximately 56,000 individuals – nearly all of them women and children – in al-Hol and Roj, two heavily guarded, open-air camps in northeast Syria encircled by barbed wire.