Six women and 16 children from the al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria, where IS members have been detained, have now been returned to Belgium.
The children were born between 2010 and 2019. One of them is an orphaned child of a Belgian father, states the country’s public prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw.
“These children were immediately taken into care by knowledgeable youth services and prosecutors,” he said at a press conference.
The fact that women and children could be led out of autonomy in northeastern Syria is due to the fact that the Belgian government last year took a decision to allow mothers who have clearly distanced themselves from extremist ideology and clearly expressed a desire to return, to do so.
Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said there are few Belgian women left in Syria, and estimates that around 10-15 men are imprisoned in the country. Belgium is not trying to bring them home.
From 2012, a total of around 300 people traveled from Sweden to participate in the war in Syria and join violent pro-Islamist groups, mainly the terrorist organization IS.
About half of the Swedish IS supporters have returned.