An announcement awaited by families and associations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, in a press release Thursday, October 20, having repatriated 40 children and 15 women from jihadist prison camps in northeastern Syria, overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
“The minors have been handed over to the services responsible for child support and will be subject to medical and social follow-up. The adults have been handed over to the competent judicial authorities”specifies the Quai d’Orsay.
Conviction by the European Court of Human Rights
These repatriations of French nationals present on Syrian soil follow that of a woman and two children on October 3. On July 5, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced the return to France of sixteen jihadist women and thirty-five minors, including seven unaccompanied children. A sudden acceleration of repatriations, while France had until then led a policy of return in dribs and drabs, decried by women and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also condemned France, on July 14, for not having justified the non-repatriation of two wives of jihadists and their children, whose relatives had filed two applications before the European court located in Strasbourg, on 6 May 2019 and 7 October 2020.