The US repatriates eleven Americans and six Canadian children from Syria

The US has repatriated 11 of its citizens and six Canadian children from camps in northeastern Syria, the State Department announced.

Ten of the US citizens are reportedly members of one family. The six Canadians are all children.

Four Dutch citizens and a Finnish citizen were also repatriated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry said.

About 30,000 people from 60 countries – most of them children – remain trapped in two overcrowded camps in Syria.

The camps, Al-Hol and Roj, are run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which fought against Islamic State for years until the fall of the so-called caliphate in early 2019.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that this is the largest repatriation of US citizens from camps in Syria to date.

A nine-year-old sibling of one of the American children who is not a U.S. citizen was also resettled in the U.S., the statement said.

Although the Americans have not been named by the State Department, US media have identified one of them as a Massachusetts-born woman, Brandy Salman, and her nine children, who now range in age from about seven to 26.

They arrived back in the US on Tuesday morning and according to National Public Radio, Ms Salman will initially live with her mother in New Hampshire.

Ms Salman’s Turkish-American husband is said to have taken the family to Syria in 2016. He was murdered and the family was eventually taken into custody by the SDF.

It is unclear where Ms Salman and her family will be resettled, and whether she will face criminal charges.

Some other US citizens who allegedly joined the Islamic State group have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, among other charges. Others have not been charged.

The New York Times has reported that two of the children being brought to the US – an American and his adopted non-citizen brother – are the sons of a Minnesota man named Abdelhamid Al-Madioum.

Al-Madioum – a Moroccan-born American – traveled to Syria in 2015 to join the Islamic State group.

After being captured by the SDF in 2019, he was returned to Minnesota. In 2021, he pleaded guilty to charges of supporting terrorism.

So far, the US has repatriated 51 of its citizens from Syria.

Although Global Affairs Canada has acknowledged that six of its citizens, all minors, have been repatriated, the country declined to provide further details, citing privacy concerns.

“The focus now is on protecting the children’s privacy and ensuring they receive the support and care needed to start a new life here in Canada,” Global Affairs said in a statement.

A Canadian lawyer working on their case, Lawrence Greenspon, told the BBC on Tuesday that the six are siblings and are settled in Canada with one family for the time being.

Last year, Canada offered to repatriate the six children without their mother, which she declined.

Mr. Greenspon said their mother is now out of the Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria, where she was at the time, and is again seeking permission to return to Canada to be reunited with her children.

About 30,000 people from dozens of countries remain in the Al-Hol and Roj camps, where human rights groups have reported abuses and poor conditions.

Others have warned that children raised in the camps are vulnerable to radicalization by Islamic State militants.

However, some countries have resisted the repatriation of their citizens.

“The only lasting solution to the humanitarian and security crisis in the displaced persons camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and, where necessary, hold accountable for wrongdoing,” Blinken said in the statement on Tuesday. .