Repatriation of jihadists: four Albanian children leave camp in Syria

Four Albanian children have left the Al-Hol displaced persons camp, which hosts families of jihadists in northern Syria, and will be repatriated from Lebanon, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Red Crescent said on Monday (October 26th).

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“The children left from Qamichli to Damascus then from Damascus towards the Lebanese border, and from Lebanon, they will go to Albania,” said Rahaf Abboud.

"The operation took place at the request of the Albanian government," she added.

An official Albanian delegation visited last Thursday in northeastern Syria where it met Kurdish officials, the foreign affairs department of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration said on Facebook.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama traveled to Beirut to attend the repatriation scheduled for Tuesday.

"We are in the process of repatriating four Albanian children from Al-Hol hell camp, thanks to a very complicated operation and after more than a year of efforts," he wrote on his Facebook page. .

The injured mother of three of the children, Floresha Rasha, must also be repatriated with them.

Since the fall in March 2019 of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” of the Islamic State (IS) group, Kurdish forces have managed several camps for the displaced in northeastern Syria, where thousands of civilians have fled the fighting against them. jihadists.

These camps also host families of ISIS members, including thousands of foreign women and their children.

The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration has continued to demand the repatriation of foreign women and children ever since, but Western countries are moving slowly on the file, often welcoming children, often orphans, in sparse times.