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The Government begins to repatriate from Syria the wives and children of ISIS jihadists

2023-01-10T22:50:10.800Z


Two women and 13 minors arrive at the Torrejón de Ardoz military airport in Madrid. Communication problems have prevented the repatriation of a third Spanish woman located in northeast Syria


Two of the Spanish wives and widows of Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists who were interned in prison camps under the control of Kurdish militias in northern Syria arrived in Spain on Monday night, according to informed sources familiar with the repatriation process.

The two women are Yolanda Martínez, 37, and Luna Fernández, 34, and they have traveled with 13 minors, according to these same sources.

Yolanda Martínez has four children, while Luna Fernández is the mother of five —the eldest, aged 15, was separated from his mother and admitted to a correctional facility—, and cared for four other orphan children who are waiting for their grandparents in the Madrid neighborhood of Moratalaz.

As reported to this newspaper by the lawyer for the families, José Luis Laso, the two women,

Investigated by the National Court, they have been arrested and will give a statement to the Police this Tuesday, before going to court.

The children are already in the custody of social services.

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During the afternoon of this Tuesday, some relatives, by appointment with the authorities, have been able to see the children in a room for two hours.

Others will do it this Wednesday.

"They are sad, but apparently well, at least in health," a relative of Luna Fernández told EL PAÍS.

"They are affected, very tired, they have lived through hell and they have not slept for two nights," he continued, "we have taken a weight off our shoulders, a load on our chests."

The women and minors landed around midnight at the Torrejón de Ardoz military airport in Madrid.

The families, who received some photographs from the aerodrome, tried to get closer to be able to hug Martínez, Fernández and the minors, but then permission was not granted.

The two women are scheduled to testify on Wednesday before Judge Santiago Pedraz,

JJ Galvez

.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has explained in a statement that the National Court "will proceed to legalize the procedural situation" of the women.

The operation has lasted for several months, according to information from the ministry, "due to its complexity and the risky situation of the Syrian camps."

The Government, as announced in November by EL PAÍS, at the end of the year undertook the last works to repatriate the 4 women and 17 children and adolescents —the eldest, 15 years old;

the youngest, already born in captivity, only 3— with roots in Spain and in the custody of Kurdish militias since the defeat of ISIS in its last stronghold, the town of Baguz, in March 2019. A month later, a journalist from EL PAÍS managed to locate the women in northeast Syria.

Together with Martínez and Fernández, Lubna Miludi, 29, and Loubna Fares, 43, were in northern Syria, the latter of Moroccan nationality, but with children of a Spanish jihadist.

The women and children repatriated on Monday were in the Al Roj prison camp in north-east Syria, along the border with Turkey.

This camp, which houses some 2,000 people linked to ISIS, has better access that has allowed the Spanish authorities to expedite the repatriation process.

More information

Al-Hol: the open-air prison that no one wants to look at

Lubna Miludi, born in Ceuta, is with her seven-year-old son in the raised field to the south of the town of Al Hol, about 100 kilometers from the other camp, very close to the border with Iraq.

Al Hol is home to around 60,000 people, including foreigners, Syrians and Iraqis.

As reported by the families' lawyer, it has not yet been possible to manage Miludi's repatriation due to communication problems with her ―the inmates have been prohibited from using mobile phones, although many have contravened this measure to contact their families―.

The threat of ISIS sleeper cells from outside the camps and sympathizers of the terrorist group from within has increased the insecurity and vulnerability of these camps, in addition to common violence, lack of medical care, food or poor conditions. accommodation, with tents exposed to the high summer temperatures or the current winter cold.

Thus, these centers, where women and children are held indefinitely without judicial control, have become new

Guantanamo

in the middle of the Syrian desert.

The Kurdish autonomous government has urged the countries of origin to repatriate their nationals, but the reluctance of foreign governments, the complex investigation of the inmates and even the difficulty in identifying them have delayed the return processes.

The three women of Spanish nationality had asked to return to Spain with the minors in their care.

The eldest of them, Abdurrahman, 15, the son of Luna Fernández, was separated from his mother and interned 21 months ago in a correctional facility for children of ISIS fighters.

The fourth prisoner, Loubna Fares, Moroccan widow of the Spanish jihadist of Iranian origin Navid Sanati, escaped in February 2020 with her three children from the Al Hol camp and since then her whereabouts have been unknown.

Sanati's family, in a recent conversation with EL PAÍS, stated that they do not know the whereabouts of the four.

The families of the repatriates, who have fought through the courts, politics and the media for more than three years to achieve the return of the children, want to take custody of the minors, a process that the social services will have to assess.

This has been expressed by both the grandfather of Yolanda Martínez's children, Luis Martínez, as well as the grandmothers of the children who accompany Luna Fernández, Manuela Grande and Hafida Dadach, and the father of Lubna Miludi, Mohamed Miludi.

The women's repatriation process has been coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministries of the Interior, Defence, Social Rights, Justice and the Presidency have participated.

The objective was, according to sources from the Executive, for them to be back before the end of the year, although in the end it took a few days.

The women will appear before the National Court because they are being investigated for their links to the jihadist cell Brigade Al Andalus, to which their husbands allegedly belonged.

They could be accused of having settled in a foreign territory controlled by a terrorist organization in order to collaborate with it, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison under the Penal Code.

“With this operation, Spain joins its European neighbors [Germany, Belgium, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, among others].

(...) Spain complies with its legal obligations, also derived from international treaties”, explained the Ministry led by José Manuel Albares.

The Government had so far refused to repatriate its nationals.

The situation has evolved in recent months.

Spain had been left alone in its refusal, since the vast majority of EU countries have repatriated their citizens, at least partially.

In July, an estimated 154 European women, including Spanish women, remained in the camps in northeastern Syria.

According to data released this Tuesday by the organization Save the Children, one of those that works in the difficult terrain of Al Hol and Al Roj, during 2022, a dozen countries repatriated a record number of 517 children and women from the camps, 60 % more compared to 2021 and 84% compared to 2020.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-10

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