(Reuters) A Belgian court’s decision to overturn a ruling forcing it to repatriate two Belgian women convicted of being Islamic State militants and their six children from Syria has left their family devastated.
The grandmother of the six children, aged from 11 months to seven years, has been trying for more than a year to bring them back from Syria, where they are being held by U.S.-backed Kurdish militias.
When a judge ordered the state in December to do everything possible not only to bring the children back but also their mothers, she had begun to prepare for their homecoming.
Pink and blue backpacks hang under pegs with the children’s names in the hallway of her home near Antwerp ready for them to return to school.
