{"id":20805,"date":"2018-11-02T10:24:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T10:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20805"},"modified":"2018-11-02T10:24:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T10:24:01","slug":"french-daesh-mothers-held-in-syria-face-terrible-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20805","title":{"rendered":"French \u2018Daesh mothers\u2019 held in Syria face terrible choice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nPARIS: For dozens of French women detained in Syria, an impossible choice looms: Keeping their children in a war zone, or sending them home knowing they might never see each other again.<\/p>\n

\nLike other Western nations which experienced an extremist exodus to Iraq or Syria, France is grappling with how to handle citizens left in the war zone following heavy losses for Daesh.<\/p>\n

\nLast week, France announced plans to start repatriating an estimated 150 children, many of them being held alongside their mothers by Kurdish forces in Syria following Daesh defeats.<\/p>\n

\nBut French officials made clear that the mothers themselves will not be welcomed home.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"A few days ago, Nadine \u2014 her name has been changed \u2014 got a phone call from her daughter-in-law in a Kurdish camp.<\/p>\n

\nThe young mother was in tears. \u201cDo I have to abandon my children in order for them to go back to France?\u201d she sobbed.<\/p>\n

\nNadim Houry, a senior Human Rights Watch official who regularly visits the Kurdish camps, said France\u2019s announcement would \u201cbring an end to an unbearable situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThere are no schools or activities for children in the camps, where poor hygiene causes regular bouts of diarrhea, vomiting and skin infections. Lawyers for the mothers, pushing for the whole families to be repatriated, have complained for months of \u201cdeplorable\u201d conditions in the camps.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy daughter-in-law gets sick a lot, like her children,\u201d Nadine said. \u201cShe only weighs 45 kg.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nReluctant to bring extremists back onto home soil, France has so far insisted its captured nationals must go on trial locally.<\/p>\n

\nSome 260 adults and 80 minors have already returned to France from Syria or Iraq, and earlier this year French authorities estimated that more than 700 adults and 500 children were still in the war zone.<\/p>\n

\nSeveral French adults have already been tried in Iraq and their children repatriated.<\/p>\n

\nBut in Syria, most of the remaining French nationals are being held in northern Syria in territory which, while under Kurdish control, does not constitute an internationally recognized state.<\/p>\n

\nKurdish forces have repeatedly insisted they will not try foreign prisoners and have called on the extremists\u2019 home countries to repatriate them.<\/p>\n

\nHoury said the idea that France could leave the Kurds to put its nationals on trial was \u201ca fiction\u201d that it was maintaining in a bid to avoid public alarm at a wave of impending terrorist returns.<\/p>\n

\nLawyers for the mothers, meanwhile, say it is a travesty that a country which touts itself as a beacon of human rights would separate parents from children and leave its citizens in a war zone.<\/p>\n

\nWilliam Bourdon, a lawyer for several of the women, insisted that \u201cthe vast majority have had no combat or active role in Daesh and have a right to a fair trial, which can only take place in France.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nNadine began sobbing at the thought of the choice facing her daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHaving to give away your children without knowing whether or not you\u2019re going to see them again one day, or who will be looking after them \u2014 can you imagine doing that to someone?\u201d Nadine said in a phone call.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy daughter-in-law is still breastfeeding the youngest, just eight months old. It\u2019s an unspeakable cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHoury predicted that many of the mothers will refuse to separate from their children \u2014 an assessment shared by relatives in France.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s their comfort, their only reason for living,\u201d said one resident in northern France, whose sister is still in Syria.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy daughter-in-law will not give up her little one like that, not even knowing what\u2019s going to become of herself,\u201d said Sarah, a pseudonym.<\/p>\n

\nSarah\u2019s son and his wife set off for Syria in 2016 and were arrested a year ago by the Kurds.<\/p>\n

\nThe mother and son are both in a camp, fending off illness and chasing away mice from their tent, Sarah said.<\/p>\n

\nLike the families, child psychologist Serge Hefez believes separating the children from their parents can only bring more harm.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cKeeping a link with a parent, even if it\u2019s visits in prison, is essential for a child,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nOtherwise, he warned, the children run a greater risk of radicalization themselves \u2014 turning the absent parent \u201cinto a hero or a martyr.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS: For dozens of French women detained in Syria, an impossible choice looms: Keeping their children in a war zone, or sending them home knowing they might never see each other again. Like other Western nations which experienced an extremist exodus to Iraq or Syria, France is grappling with how to handle citizens left in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}