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Children repatriated from Syria: “Now that we have started this process, we have to finish it”

Samira, a Belgian national married to French IS member Karam El-Harchaoui, pictured with their son at Camp Roj in northern Syria, where thousands of women and children are languishing.

AP - Maya Alleruzzo

Text by: Oriane Verdier Follow

4 mins

France repatriated this Tuesday 35 French minors and 16 mothers detained in Syria since the fall of the Islamic State organization.

Nearly 150 French children are still detained in Syria, among them the grandchildren of Marc Lopez, a member of the Collective of United Families.

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RFI: How did you receive the news, between hope and disappointment?

Marc Lopez:

Never has France repatriated so many children at once and never has France repatriated children with their mothers.

From both points of view, this is excellent news.

The disappointment is above all in the fact that it took much too long to organize this repatriation.

These little ones, some of whom are orphans, have been languishing in this camp for several years in disastrous conditions.

We have largely shattered their childhood by leaving them in these camps for all these years.

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We therefore hope that France will change its policy and that this operation will herald new repatriations.

It has to be done quickly now.

Among the children who have not been repatriated, some arrived in the camps in 2017. They have lived all their lives or 90% of their lives in detention.

They can no longer wait six months, a year before we bring them back.

Now that we have started this process, we have to finish it.

Have the French authorities been able to reassure you about a potential rapid return of your own grandchildren?

No, not at all, just as we didn't know until the last moment who would be repatriated on Tuesday.

I have four small children who are from 3 to 12 years old.

They are in

.

They attended Monday, like all other French children, the departure of other French children to their country.

Today, they find themselves like the others in the camp at a temperature of over 40°C in the tent, hoping that they will be repatriated fairly quickly since they have been there for four years.

These children truly live in appalling conditions.

They don't really have a school, they have very limited access to healthcare, and above all they are prisoners.

Do you know according to which criteria the 35 repatriated children were selected?

No, the criteria were never established.

This has always been done on a case-by-case basis.

Sometimes we talked about orphans.

Other times, orphans and children separated from their mothers.

This time, the big difference is in addition to orphan children, there are also children repatriated with their mothers.

So now I don't see why there would be some children who would be repatriated and not others.

Once they arrive in France, what happens to these children?

When the children arrive in France, there is an extremely structured protocol.

They are entrusted to the Childhood Social Assistance and then go, initially, to foster families or homes.

From the moment the child has set foot on French soil, an “investigation” is conducted in parallel by the children's judge on the extended family if it is willing to welcome him.

Of course, we, like other families, want the children to return to their own families whenever possible.

This is the surest way for them to reclaim their own history and the love of their family.

If the government is struggling to move forward, on the other hand, we have the impression that society is changing on the subject, between justice ready to receive mothers, social assistance for children ready to receive children with an adapted system, at the same time the trial of the attacks of November 13 which ended.

Do you share this feeling?

Yes, a long way has been done.

In 2019, we were still very alone.

Little by little, we had more and more support.

Initially, major international organizations took a stand.

And then in France, indeed, there were personalities or organizations, collectives of artists.

More recently, there was

.

We were able to meet victims of the attacks.

A certain number of them gathered in association 13onze15 or Life for Paris expressed their solidarity to us in our fight for the return of the children.

We greatly appreciate this support.

We think he played a lot, it's a huge gesture from them.

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