{"id":32276,"date":"2019-02-08T02:23:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T02:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32276"},"modified":"2019-02-08T02:23:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T02:23:33","slug":"hrw-warns-against-secret-transfer-of-militants-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32276","title":{"rendered":"HRW warns against secret transfer of militants from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAny transfers of suspected foreign militants and their relatives out of Syria should be transparent, Human Rights Watch told AFP, as camps in the northeast fill with families of different nationalities.<\/p>\n

\nWith the crumbling of Daesh, France is now considering bringing dozens of accused French militants, as well as their wives and children, back home from the detention centers and camps run by US-backed forces fighting Daesh.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe would definitely like to be present (during the transfer), or at least there should be some transparency,\u201d Nadim Houry, HRW\u2019s director of counter-terrorism, told AFP in the northern Syrian town of Amuda late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAs we speak, there may already be transfers happening. There\u2019s been a total lack of transparency, and bad things happen in the dark,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

\nTens of thousands of foreigners are estimated to have joined Daesh since 2014, but they have streamed out of the militants\u2019 collapsing \u201ccaliphate\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are bearing down on the shrinking pocket of Daesh territory in east Syria, told AFP they were detaining foreign fighters on a \u201cdaily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe SDF are also holding hundreds of women and children who were born to alleged Daesh militants, including French nationals, in two main prison camps in the north.<\/p>\n

\nAuthorities at one of the camps, Al-Hol, say they have received more than 1,000 foreign nationals since fighting against Daesh\u2019s last positions ramped up in mid-December.<\/p>\n

\nOn Wednesday, dozens of foreign women and their young children, who had recently arrived from the battered Daesh pocket further south, could be seen waiting in a reception area in Al-Hol.<\/p>\n

\nThe women wore black veils covering everything but their blue eyes and called out to their pale, thin children in English and French.<\/p>\n

\nThey were waiting to be assigned tents in the cordoned-off section of the camp where foreigners are held, and were not allowed to speak to reporters.<\/p>\n

\nThe Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria has spent months calling for the foreigners\u2019 countries of origin to take them back.<\/p>\n

\nThose nations are often reluctant, but the issue has taken on greater urgency amid fears of a security vacuum since US President Donald Trump\u2019s shock announcement in December that US troops would withdraw.<\/p>\n

\nWashington has also begun pressuring countries to repatriate foreigners in recent days.<\/p>\n

\nFrench sources have told AFP that an estimated 50 adults and 80 children could be brought back to France, but authorities have not confirmed any planned transfer.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhile this debate is taking place in France, it\u2019s not clear it has manifested itself in any concrete measures on the ground,\u201d said Houry, whose team plans to visit foreigners in the camps.<\/p>\n

\nHRW is seeking clarity on the numbers that might return, what route they would be transferred through, and whether children would be separated from their parents.<\/p>\n

\nFrance has a responsibility not to leave its citizens, including children under seven years old, in legal limbo in a \u201cGuantanamo on the Euphrates,\u201d Houry said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are confident that once they actually hit France, there is a mechanism in place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re concerned about is what is going to happen between now and then. We\u2019re in a grey zone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any transfers of suspected foreign militants and their relatives out of Syria should be transparent, Human Rights Watch told AFP, as camps in the northeast fill with families of different nationalities. With the crumbling of Daesh, France is now considering bringing dozens of accused French militants, as well as their wives and children, back home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32276","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\/32276","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=32276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}