The Quai d'Orsay announced on Tuesday, July 5, that France had repatriated 35 French minor children, but also 16 mothers "who were in the camps in northeastern Syria".
"The minors have been handed over to the services responsible for child support and will be subject to medical monitoring. The mothers have been handed over to the competent judicial authorities", specifies the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release .
"France would like to thank the local authorities in northeast Syria for the cooperation that made this operation possible," the statement concluded.
On February 24, a UN committee found that France had violated the rights of French children detained in Syria by failing to repatriate them.
"France's refusal to repatriate French children detained in Syrian camps in life-threatening conditions for years violates their right to life, as well as their right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment", a said the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which had examined complaints concerning 49 French children.
In December 2020, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) demanded the return of all children from Syria as well as jihadists "sentenced to death in Iraq".
She then estimated the number of French minors at 250, held in the camps in northeastern Syria, controlled by the Kurdish forces, and deplored the "case by case" management operated by the French government.
With AFP
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