(Reuters) The Netherlands must actively help repatriate the young children of women who joined Islamic State in Syria, a court in The Hague ruled on Monday.
The mothers themselves do not need to be accepted back in the Netherlands, the court said.
Lawyers for 23 women who joined Islamic State from the Netherlands had asked a judge on Friday to order the state to repatriate them and their 56 children from camps in Syria.
The women and children were living in “deplorable conditions” in the Al-Hol camp in northern Syria, their lawyer had argued.
Judge Hans Vetter said that while the women did not need to be repatriated the state must make “all possible efforts” to return the children, who have Dutch nationality and are under 12 years old. Most are younger than six.
