Azdyne Amimour and his wife keep a room ready in their small flat in a Paris suburb, in the hope their granddaughter will soon come to live with them. It’s been ready for years.
The Amimours’ son, Samy, left France for Syria in 2013 to . In November 2015, he returned to France and entered the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where he and two others killed 90 people and injured many others. Mr. Amimour died in the attack. About a week later, his daughter was born in Syria to another French national.
The Amimours searched for their granddaughter and eventually located her in a detention camp in Syria. About two years ago, they found out that she and her mother had been repatriated to France. The mother, identified as Kahina El H., was immediately charged with associating with terrorists and detained, and her children were taken into care. The Amimours said they have still not met their granddaughter, an absence that they said feels like a gaping hole in their lives.
The Amimours see their granddaughter as a victim of her parents’ terrible choices, but in many ways, she is one of the lucky ones. Tens of thousands of children are still detained in camps in northern Syria. A large majority are Syrian and Iraqi, but many are foreign nationals. Roughly half are children under 12. These children are growing up in the same camps as some of the Islamic State’s remaining supporters and, in the case of foreign children, often with the knowledge that they have been rejected by the home countries of their parents — that they are viewed, in fact, as a threat. This is not only inhumane; it is exactly backward. All of the children in the camps are victims of the Islamic State and of indifference. Our research has focused on the European nationals in the camps and the European approach to repatriation. Fear of what these children represent is understandable, but there is evidence that shows these children have the ability to adapt and reintegrate into European society, especially when placed with families. For their sake, and for the sake of Europe’s security, it’s time for these children to come home.
When the Islamic State declared a breakaway caliphate within Syria and Iraq in the summer of 2014, it urged foreign fighters to come to the region and take up arms. People came from all over the world. Some brought families; some married in the so-called caliphate and had children. When the Islamic State was ousted from the last remnants of its territory by American-backed forces in 2019, thousands of people who had been living under its control were herded into former refugee camps in northern Syria, which were refashioned as detention camps. Many of them are still there.
One of us visited the camps several times as research for a documentary and spoke to many women who deeply regretted their choice to leave Europe, and particularly its impact on their children. Some held on to a hope of repatriation and taught their children the language of the country they’d left just in case.
When we last visited the camps, in 2020, there was a palpable sense of hopelessness — particularly among the women and children, who make up roughly 90 percent of the detainees. Officially, the camps are run by the Syrian Democratic Forces and its affiliates. Unofficially, those still loyal to the Islamic State continued to impose authority and influence. In the sweltering heat and dust, rows of tattered, sun-bleached tents stretched across an area the size of a small city. The narrow paths between rows were crowded with makeshift stalls where adults traded a few essentials while children darted about, playing games with scraps of plastic and sticks, their laughter momentarily breaking the tense stillness.
Food was insufficient, water was contaminated, and schooling was almost nonexistent. There were frequent violent clashes between detainees and the mostly Kurdish fighters who serve as the limited security. At the end of 2022, a report by Doctors Without Borders raised serious concerns about the mental health of the long-term residents of the camps, the youngest of whom have only ever known war, displacement and violence.
Despite this, many nations — particularly those in Europe — have been reluctant to let their citizens return despite significant pressure from human rights organizations and the United Nations. Some countries have repatriated most of their nationals. And in recent years, numbers have improved. In 2022, almost 3,000 people were either repatriated or, in the case of Syrians, returned to their communities; in 2023, it was more than 5,400. But some countries have been notable for their stringent approach. Consider the case of Shamima Begum, who left Britain for Syria when she was 15 and who was stripped of her British citizenship by the British government in 2019.
We believe that repatriation would better serve national security, as well as being immeasurably better for the children. A growing body of evidence indicates that repatriated children often adapt remarkably well to their return to Europe. One of us has interviewed several families in Europe whose grandchildren are now happily attending school, have made friends and, despite psychological scars, are managing to adjust to their new circumstances. Several caretakers described children telling them that being separated from their mothers — who are often detained immediately on return and who for many children have been the only constant in their short, precarious lives — was the most scarring part of their move to Europe.
While governments hesitate, in Syria, children wait impatiently to be recognized as victims rather than threats. In Paris, the Amimours wait impatiently to hold their granddaughter.
The post The Children of the Islamic State Are Innocent. Bring Them Home. appeared first on New York Times.