Kyrgyzstan announced on Wednesday the repatriation of around 100 women and children of jihadists from detention camps in Syria. Thousands of nationals of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia had joined jihadist organizations between 2013 and 2015.
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With our correspondent in Beirut, Paul Khalifeh
The repatriated women and children come from the al-Hol and Roj camps in northeast Syria, which are home to more than 55,000 people, family members of jihadists from the Islamic State group. The men are detained in other places.
For Kyrgyzstan, this is the third repatriation operation since the fall, in March 2019, of the self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State group.
The returnees are among 7,500 foreigners from 57 countries, half of whom are Europeans, still detained in al-Hol.
Most of these countries are turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the Kurdish administrators of the camps, who are urging the States concerned to repatriate their nationals. While Germany and Belgium have recovered almost all of their citizens, France has put a brake on repatriations after bringing back 169 children and 57 women. Nearly 280 French people remain in al-Hol, including 200 children.
Al-Hol is considered by experts to be a hotbed of systematic radicalization. The Islamic State group rules the roost there and is said to have female police and clandestine cells responsible for assassinating people suspected of collaborating with Kurdish forces or NGOs.