Authorities in Belgium have repatriated 16 jihadist children and six mothers – all of them Belgian nationals – from a Kurdish-controlled camp in northeastern Syria.
A Belgian Defense Ministry plane carrying them landed in Brussels on Monday night through Tuesday night, while a court source confirmed the information transmitted by many Belgian media.
All the children, under the age of 12, were evacuated from the al-Hool camp with their six mothers and crossed the border into Iraq by road before boarding a Belgian plane in Arbil, according to the same source.
According to the French radio and television network RTBF, these mothers have already been convicted in Belgium, mainly for participating in activities of a terrorist organization, and as soon as they arrived in the country they were handed over to justice. The children will undergo medical examinations before the services take over.
“Tonight, the last phase of an operation aimed at repatriating 16 children from Syria accompanied by their mothers who have Belgian citizenship took place,” the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“The Department of Defense flight landed at 1:30 a.m.,” the statement added.
It is the most important operation of its kind undertaken by the Belgian authorities since the fall of the Islamic State caliphate in 2019. Shortly afterwards, hundreds of women and children of various nationalities were arrested and held in camps controlled by Kurdish forces.
In March 2021, a day after the counter-terrorism gave the green light, Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croix had vowed to “do everything” to repatriate from these camps children under the age of 12, Belgian nationals. which has been proven.
Ocam, the Belgian terrorist threat analysis service, had said that children and mothers living in the camps needed to be “constantly monitored”, which is “much easier” to do on Belgian soil.
In July 2021, the first major operation took place under the auspices of the government. Ten children and six mothers then returned to Belgium from Camp Rose.
Belgium and France are among the European countries from which the largest number of foreign fighters left after the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011. Since 2012, more than 400 Belgians have left to fight in Syria on the side of jihadist organizations.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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