Iraq News

ICRC wants to send ISIS children in Syria home

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants hundreds of children of "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) foreign fighters in Syria to be allowed to return to their countries of origin, AFP reported Tuesday (April 2nd).

The children are living without their parents at al-Hol camp in north-eastern Syria that holds up to 100,000 people who were displaced as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in on the last ISIS holdout.

About 10,000 foreign women and children with ties to ISIS foreign fighters are held in a separate area of the camp, with children under 12 accounting for two-thirds of this group.

"Our priority is to proactively look to bring kids back to their country of origin where there is hopefully still family if they are unaccompanied," ICRC president Peter Maurer said.

Foreigners at al-Hol camp are from some 30 to 40 countries.

Once the identity of the children is established, the ICRC will notify governments and see if there is family in those countries "to which we can send the kids back", Maurer said.

He did not have a specific figure for the number of children without their parents at al-Hol camp, but estimated there were "certainly hundreds, maybe more".

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