Finland takes back a female ISIS member and her four children from Hol Camp

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has handed over a Finnish woman and her four children from the shattered ISIS to their home country. The family of five last lived in the Hol reception and internment camp near Hesekê, which currently houses nearly 60,000 people, and was repatriated from Syria via Turkey, according to the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

“The authorities of Finland are constitutionally obliged to protect the fundamental rights of Finnish citizens – especially children – in these camps as much as possible,” the Foreign Ministry said. The only way to do this is to bring them to Finland. The repatriated persons are members of the same family. One of the mother’s children has reached adulthood, the youngest is under five years old. Finland repatriates not only the children, but also their mothers, as the best interests of the child take precedence. Other countries only bring back the children of ISIS members.

Since the crushing of the Islamic State terrorist group’s territorial rule in Syria in the spring of 2019, Finland has taken back a total of 35 of its nationals captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the latest repatriation operation. These are 26 children and nine adults. According to the authorities in Helsinki, a dozen people with Finnish citizenship are currently still in reception camps in the north-eastern Syrian autonomous region.

“The camps in north-eastern Syria pose a serious, long-term security risk. The longer children are held in the camps without protection and education, the more difficult it will be to combat violent extremism and radicalisation,” the statement by the Finnish Foreign Ministry said. The Scandinavian country also wants to repatriate the remaining nationals from the camps in north-eastern Syria in the foreseeable future.

The situation in the camps is getting out of control

Meanwhile, the Autonomous Administration’s Foreign Affairs officer, Abdulkarim Omar, warns of a new ISIS generation growing up in the internment and reception camps in north-eastern Syria and calls for support from the countries of origin of ISIS prisoners and their relatives. “The international public must help us. Nothing is being done to bring ISIS members to justice. There is also no support regarding the ISIS families in the camps. We have been calling for a court for the trial of the Islamists for a long time, but nobody is responding to our appeals. The women and children in the camps are a great danger. They give a new shape to ISIS. The children are raised with hatred,” Omar said in an ANF interview.