Repatriation of French families of jihadists detained in Syria: the end of the "case by case"?
Women and children at the Roj camp in northeastern Syria on March 28, 2021 (illustrative image).
AFP - DELIL SOULEIMAN
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
For the first time, France proceeded on Tuesday to the repatriation of 35 French minor children who were in the camps in northeastern Syria, where the families of the jihadists are detained, announced the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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For the first time, France announced on Tuesday
the repatriation of 35 children of jihadists as well as that of 16 mothers
.
A decision that follows long and difficult negotiations between France and the Kurdish authorities who administer the northeastern regions of Syria, reports
our correspondent in Beirut
,
Paul Khalifeh
.
About 160 French children and 70 women still detained
There are approximately 160 French children and nearly 70 adult women still detained in this region.
Most are in the Roj and al-Hol camps in Syria's northeastern province of Hassakeh, run by Kurdish authorities who have proclaimed autonomy for those areas.
Al-Hol camp alone is home to more than 62,000 people, two-thirds of whom are under the age of 18 and more than half under the age of 12.
They are children and wives of fighters from the Islamic State group.
The most numerous are Iraqis, followed by Syrians and other Arab nationalities.
But there are also thousands of Europeans whose governments refuse repatriation.
The end of a “case by case” policy?
The Kurdish authorities are under fire for their management of these open-air prisons.
Human rights organizations denounce a catastrophic health situation, and Western intelligence services point out the risk of indoctrination of children by the Islamic State group, which continues to rule in these camps, where every year dozens of murders.
This repatriation of the families of the jihadists constitutes a relief for the relatives and the hope of the end of a policy of "
case by case
", hope those whose relatives are still detained in the northeast of Syria.
Because the dangers which weigh on them are multiple, judge Fabrice Balanche, lecturer at the University Lyon 2, in particular for those which show signs of rehabilitation.
"
The main risk is for women who are deviant from the ideology of the Islamic State,
" he explains.
They can have their throats cut in the night by their sister who can't stand their deviating because the al-Hol camp is really under the thumb of the Islamic State ideology.
»
The fear of regional destabilization and a resurgence of the IS group
“
And then, above all, what may happen soon, because there are noises of boots on the border with the Turkish president threatening military intervention against the Kurds, is that a Turkish military intervention destabilizes the region, that the camp is no longer monitored, that the Islamic State takes the opportunity to raid this camp to free everyone
, "he warns.
Until now, France had refused to collectively repatriate these French nationals.
This change in policy comes at the end of the electoral deadlines but also as the Islamic State in Syria strengthens and Turkey threatens to launch a military offensive against the Kurds in northeastern Syria, precisely where these women are being held. and children.
For Fabrice Balanche, the international context made this repatriation necessary.
“
C
What may happen soon, because there are noises of boots on the border with the Turkish president threatening military intervention against the Kurds, is that a Turkish military intervention destabilizes the region, that the camp is no longer guarded, that the Islamic State takes the opportunity to raid this camp to free everyone.
»
A situation which could have influenced the Quai d'Orsay, he believes.
For several years, the Kurdish authorities, who no longer want to have to manage these camps, have also been pushing for the repatriation of the people who are detained there.
Émilie König placed in pre-trial detention upon her arrival
Among the returnees was Émilie König, one of the best-known figures of the French jihadist movement.
As soon as she arrived in Paris, she was indicted for criminal terrorist conspiracy and placed in detention.
“
I am very tired
”, breathed in the box this 37-year-old brunette with a gray complexion, dressed in a gray fleece and black pants, after the announcement of the deliberation by the judge of freedoms and detention.
The magistrate, to whom Émilie König had said she wanted to find a "
woman's life
", told her that the investigations would continue "
to trace her career
".
The UN had placed her on its blacklist of the most dangerous jihadist fighters: daughter of a gendarme, Émilie König grew up in Lorient, in western France.
After normal schooling, she converted to Islam in contact with her first husband of Algerian origin.
She learns Arabic, calls herself Samra and begins her radicalization within an Islamist group in the city of Nantes.
In 2010, Émilie König tried to distribute leaflets near the Lorient mosque calling for jihad.
Two years later, in the spring of 2012, she left her two children in France and left to join her new companion in Syria where she gave birth to three other children.
The jihadist then appears regularly in propaganda videos of the Islamic State group in which she calls for attacking French institutions and the wives of French soldiers.
She was arrested in 2017 by Kurdish forces.
Back in France since Tuesday, Émilie König, now 37, says she wants to fully cooperate with French justice in the hope of seeing her children again.
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