Dfor almost three, four or five years, two hundred French children have been prisoners, with their mothers, in camps in northeastern Syria. Some were born in these camps; almost all of them entered when they were less than 6 years old. These children live in makeshift tents, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, in the cold and mud. They are neither educated nor treated, and do not benefit from any psychological care. They are, however, victims of war that France knowingly abandons in these “Guantanamo for children”.
The United States, Russia, Kosovo, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and many other countries have chosen to repatriate children and their mothers. “The humanitarian security situation in the camps has deteriorated”, recently assaulted Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod to justify the government’s decision to repatriate them. For months, French children in Syria have watched their comrades of other nationalities return home and the camps empty: in two years, a thousand children have been repatriated. France, for her part, persists in letting them wither away in these camps and, by the same token, exposing them to the worst.
“They are neither the children of the Islamic State organization nor those of the jihad: they are our children, French children”
We know some of these children who returned from the Iraqi-Syrian zone, orphans or not, in 2018. We assessed their trauma and measured, above all, their incredible strength of resilience and their deep desire both to readjust to life in France and to return to their original family. We know their evolution and we can attest to the extraordinary progress they have made and continue to achieve thanks to the joint work of all childcare professionals.
Catastrophic humanitarian conditions
All the other children were due to return with their mothers in February 2019, before France backtracked. It is now necessary to act and act quickly: the traumas are taking hold, the geopolitical situation there is more and more worrying and the climate of tension and fear is at its height in the Roj camp. [dans le nord-est de la Syrie].
On their return to France, the children will certainly be separated from their mothers, their only source of affection and security, since they will be imprisoned, but the link will be maintained. Educators and psychologists will accompany these children to the visiting rooms of the remand centers to work on the preservation of the link, knowledge and understanding of their history. Magistrates and childcare professionals have the experience of this support: as of January 25, 98 French women, who have passed to flee the Islamic State organization [EI] or to escape the camps, had returned from the Iraqi-Syrian zone with their children.
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