Five Swedish children remain in IS camps in northeastern Syria, together with their mothers.
Now the Swedish government has decided that they will not get help to Sweden.
– We have made the analysis from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ side that there is no obligation from Sweden and the Swedish government to act for these people to come home. They have voluntarily chosen to go there to join IS, one of the most cruel terrorist organizations we have seen, says Foreign Minister Tobias Billström (M).
After the fall of the Islamic State in 2019, a large group of Swedish women and their children were captured. They were taken to the al-Hol prison camp in northeastern Syria, which is controlled by Kurdish forces.
For a time, up to 70,000 people were in the camp, many of whom were children.
Around 50 of them were Swedish women and children. In addition, there are about ten Swedish men in the Kurdish prisons.
Five Swedish children left
The situation in the camps has been described as catastrophically bad. Partly from a health perspective and partly because there was continued radicalization in the camp. Since 2021, a large group of women and children have been forcibly deported by the Kurds with Sweden’s consent. When the women landed, the children were taken into care by social services – but in most cases they have since been reunited with their mothers.
Five children with Swedish connections remain with their mothers, as well as ten men in the Kurdish prisons. In one of the cases, the mother did not have Swedish citizenship, but only a residence permit, while the father is a Swedish citizen.
Repented and asked for help
In another case, the woman’s presence was not known at first and she initially refused to be taken to Sweden, due to fear of being separated from the children. She later regretted it and asked for help.
So far, the current government has not come up with any information about the Swedes in Syria, but today TV4 Nyheterna can reveal that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided not to let any Swedes get help home.
– The government will not act to bring home Swedish citizens or Swedes who have connections to Sweden from these camps and that applies to everyone who is there. It applies to men, it applies to women and it applies to children, says Foreign Minister Tobias Billström.
“The responsibility lies with the parents”
He says that one of the reasons why the government has changed its stance is the new security situation.
– It is of course a factor that has had to be weighed into this analysis. We have a deteriorating security situation and we cannot rule out that some of the adults we are talking about have also been radicalized in this environment they have been in, in these camps. It is a factor we must consider, he says and continues:
– We cannot put this country, when we have a situation with a generally increased security threat, in front of a situation where we block this by bringing here people who can commit terrorist acts on our territory, says Billström.
Several have raised the alarm that at least one of the children is severely malnourished and in poor health. But if a Swedish child dies in the camp, the responsibility lies with the parents, says Tobias Billström.
– Swedish responsibility in this context must be limited to improving the situation in the camps. And there are measures and other things that have rolled over time.