Some of the 35 Russian orphans linked to the Islamic State group, who arrived at the de facto Syrian Kurdish capital, Qamishlo, appear after being transferred from the al-Hol camp in the northeast of Syria, February 6, 2020. Photo: AFP
QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— Syria’s Kurds Thursday handed over 35 Russian orphans linked to the Islamic State group to their home country in the latest such repatriation of parentless children, AFP reported.
The boys and girls were handed over to a Russian delegation in the de facto Syrian Kurdish capital, Qamishlo, in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava).
Abdelkarim Omar, a senior foreign affairs official with the Kurdish authorities, said the Russian children were approved for transfer after their identities were verified via DNA testing.
A Kurdish official said they were aged from four to 16 years old.
IS fighters overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, running a brutal proto-state before their territorial defeat in March last year.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
The Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.
The co-chair of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria, Abdul Karim Omar with the Commissioner for Children’s Rights the President of the Russian Federation Anna Kuznetsova at a press conference in Qamishlo city in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), February 6, 2020. Photo: Screengrab/ANHA video
11,000 Kurdish male and female fighters had been killed in five years of war to eliminate the Islamic State “caliphate” that once covered an area the size of Great Britain in Syria and Iraq.
Syria’s Kurds have detained thousands of foreigners suspected of fighting for Islamic State, as well as thousands of related women and children, during the battle against IS in Syria and are being held in by Kurdish forces in Syrian Kurdistan.
Kurdish authorities say they are holding around 12,000 foreigners from countries other than Iraq, including 4,000 women and 8,000 children, in three displacement camps in northeastern Syria. The majority are being held in Al-Hol.
Anna Kuznetsova, children’s rights commissioner for the Russian president, said handovers of Russian children were completed from Iraq.
“We are glad to be continuing this work on the issue of repatriating children that are today in camps,” she said.
In March 2019, the Kurds handed over three Russian orphans aged five to seven from the Country’s Muslim-majority North Caucasus region.
A month earlier, 27 children aged four to 13 were flown from Iraq to the Moscow region. That followed the repatriation from Iraq of 30 children in late December 2018.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in late 2017 called the drive to return the children “a very honourable and correct deed” and promised to help.
Syria’s Kurds have repeatedly called for the repatriation of foreign IS suspects and their relatives.
But the home countries of suspected IS members are reluctant to take them back, due to potential security risks and the likely public backlash.
Some Western government — including France and Belgium — have however brought a handful of orphans home.
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