France repatriates children from Islamic State camp in northeast Syria
Ten children are being repatriated to France from the notorious al-Hol camp, according to a northeast Syrian official. Thousands of foreign and local children remain there.
France repatriated 10 children from the al-Hol camp for Islamic State (IS)-affiliated families in northeast Syria today.
The children are now undergoing medical examinations and are in the care of social services in France, according to a statement from the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
The ministry did not specify further details about the children, including which camp they came from. An official from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which runs camps for IS-affiliated families in the region, told Al-Monitor the children came from al-Hol.
Al-Hol is a sprawling camp of tents and dirt roads that is home to 68,000 people in northeast Syria, near the border with Iraq. The residents are mostly women and children from Iraq and Syria, but there are foreigners as well, including some 7,000 foreign children. The foreign children are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic and have less access to aid, according to a May report from the humanitarian organization Save the Children.
