France evacuates 10 children, 3 women from ISIS families

The French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office announced in a statement that it had evacuated 10 children and 3 women from ISIS mercenaries' families.

The Prosecutor’s Office did not disclose further details about the evacuation process or the specific camp from which they were transferred, among the camps in North and East Syria that hold ISIS families (Al-Hol and Roj).

In its statement, the Prosecutor’s Office said that two women were “detained at the request of the investigating judge,” while another woman, who has an arrest warrant issued against her, will appear before an investigating judge later today, where she may face charges.

The statement added that the children are receiving care under educational assistance programs supervised by the Prosecutor’s Office at the Versailles Judicial Court, which will provide centralized monitoring in coordination with local prosecutor offices.

Meanwhile, Christophe Lemoine, a spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed Paris’s gratitude to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria for facilitating the evacuation.

The Region of North and East Syria hosts two camps for ISIS mercenaries’ families: Roj Camp in the city of Derik, which houses mostly European, Iraqi, and Syrian ISIS family members, with 2,664 residents across 861 families.

Al-Hol Camp, located 45 km east of Hasakah near the Syrian-Iraqi border, hosts approximately 26,539 people, including 6,352 foreign nationals, 4,933 Iraqis, 15,245 Syrians, and 9 unidentified individuals, according to the latest camp administration statistics as of September 6.

According to French authorities, this operation is the first since Paris halted the repatriation of its citizens who had joined ISIS in July 2023. France had previously repatriated many women and children from Syria since 2019 before suspending these operations in summer 2023.

The European Court of Human Rights condemned France in 2022 for failing to repatriate its citizens who had joined ISIS in Syria.

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ANHA