Syria: Families ask to "urgently repatriate" French children like those from Wuhan

The collective of the United Families, which includes in particular relatives of children of French jihadists detained in camps in Syria, asked Friday 14 February for the repatriation of the latter as for the French of Wuhan faced with the epidemic of the new coronavirus.

Read also: Repatriation of jihadists: the Red Cross calls on states "to assume their responsibilities"

About 300 children of French jihadists are held in tents in the camps of Al-Hol and Roj in northern Syria, "where temperatures have dropped to minus 10 degrees certain nights," the collective said in a statement. The collective, which brings together a hundred families, asks the government to "repatriate urgently the French children prisoners in Syria and their mothers" as it "knew how to take the necessary measures to repatriate the French residing in Wuhan, in China, facing the coronavirus epidemic ”.

France will repatriate if it has "the opportunity to do so"

" The lives and health of the children are in grave danger," the families stress, indicating that "many tents have already burned down due to accidents caused" by the gas stoves used in the camps for heating. In 2019, 517 people, including 371 children, died in Al-Hol camp, a Kurdish Red Crescent official in the camp told AFP in mid-January.

Read also: Syria: more than 500 deaths, especially children, in Al-Hol camp in 2019

On Monday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the first time agreed to consider a motion filed against France for its refusal to repatriate a family of jihadists who have two children aged 4 and 5. In early February, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian said that a total of 17 children of French jihadists have been repatriated to France so far and that France could repatriate others if it has "the opportunity to do so . "

The government is also faced with the thorny question of the return of the 150 or so adults, faced with the difficulties raised by their management in the areas where they are detained, in Iraq or in the Syrian areas in the hands of the Kurdish forces. The subject is sensitive for the executive, several polls have shown the hostility of opinion to the repatriation of jihadists.

See also - should we repatriate orphans from jihadists?