Belgium repatriates 16 children of jihadists and six mothers who left for Syria
At Camp Roj in northern Syria, where thousands of women and children live.
AP - Maya Alleruzzo
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
The success of the operation was announced in the early morning of Tuesday June 21 by the Belgian authorities.
This is the second time that Belgium has carried out such a repatriation.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
The children and their mothers landed in Brussels in the middle of the night on a military flight from Erbil in Iraq.
An arrival kept silent until the last moment, because it was only once the Belgian military plane landed at Melsbroek air base, near Brussels, that the joint operation of the police, Defense and of Foreign Affairs was announced by the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
Coming from the Syrian camp of Roj, they had been exfiltrated towards Iraq by the Kurdish authorities.
One of them is an orphan of a Belgian father and all were born between 2010 and 2019. According to the decision taken by the Belgian government fifteen months ago, repatriation can only concern children aged twelve at most, a criterion which had already allowed the
return of ten children of Belgian jihadists a year ago.
"
A parentage had to be proven, so there was a DNA analysis for all the children, and it was also necessary for adults to renounce, of course, the ideology they embraced by going there.
“, explains Frédéric Van Leeuw, federal prosecutor.
“
The return also had to be voluntary, it is not a forced return since it is impossible to execute an arrest warrant, for example, in Syria.
So the arrest warrants and the judicial side were only executed when these people arrived here in the territory
, ”he specifies.
According to Frédéric Van Leeuw, there are now no more women and children who can be repatriated from the Syrian camp in Roj.
Others may still be in the Al Hol camp, but security conditions do not allow repatriation to be considered.
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On the same subject:
Women and children of jihadists: "Repatriate them", the call of associations to Emmanuel Macron
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Belgium
Iraq
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