(AFP) Twelve children of French jihadists, most of them orphans, were flown home Monday from camps in Syria, along with two Dutch orphans who were handed over to the Netherlands, the foreign ministry said in Paris.
The latest repatriations of foreigners from northeast Syria involved a group of children that were “isolated and particularly vulnerable,” the French ministry said, adding that some were sick and malnourished.
Since the fall of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in March, the international community has been torn over what to do with the families of foreign jihadists captured or killed in Syria and Iraq.
The 12 French children — the oldest aged 10, according to Syrian Kurdish officials — had been held in two camps housing tens of thousands of people who fled recent fighting against the Islamic State (IS) group.
