Two children from the Caribbean who were taken to Syria by their father who joined the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) found their mother Monday and will be repatriated with the help of one of the founders of Pink Floyd, according to the lawyer of the family.
Kurdish semi-autonomous authorities handed over the two children to their mother in the northeastern city of Qamichli, an AFP journalist reported.
The children were kidnapped in 2014. According to lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, seven-year-old Ayoub Ferreira and her 11-year-old brother Mahmoud were "kidnapped" in 2014 in Trinidad and Tobago, a state of the Caribbean, by their father who had decided to take them to the Raqa region, the former de facto "capital" of ISIS in northern Syria.
The city was seized at the end of 2017 by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters backed by Washington in the anti-jihadist struggle, who control much of northern Syria, including the city of Qamishli. "They were kidnapped on June 20, 2014, the day after Ayoub's third birthday," said Clive Stafford-Smith.
Roger Waters "brought the mother by plane". Referring to complex and costly procedures for repatriating children, Clive Stafford-Smith said Britain's Roger Waters, founding member of the legendary band Pink Floyd, offered to help the family. Rogers Waters "has agreed to pay for everything, he has brought the mother by plane from Trinidad," he said.
After a build-up in 2014 in Syria and Iraq, the IS was routed by multiple offensives launched in these two countries. At the peak of his "caliphate", he had attracted thousands of foreign fighters to his ranks, some coming with family members.
The father was killed. An official of the Kurdish semi-autonomous authorities in charge of foreign affairs, Fener Al-Gayit, said the two children had been found in the Raqa region several months ago and then moved to areas under the control of the FDS. He said the father had been killed, without providing more details.
Nearly a thousand suspected jihadists and 550 women and about 1,200 children, all foreigners, are currently in the hands of Kurdish forces, according to officials. Triggered in 2011, the war in Syria has claimed more than 360,000 lives and displaced millions of people.