(CBC) The Canadian government is flouting its international human rights obligations by failing to repatriate and provide adequate consular assistance to 47 citizens who are currently detained in northeast Syria because of alleged ties to the Islamic State, a new report from U.S.-based Human Rights Watch alleges.
Twenty-six of the Canadians being held in camps and prisons controlled by Kurdish forces are children, and many are under the age of six, according to the advocacy group. The report says they are living in deplorable conditions at overcrowded camps with a lack of sanitation, contaminated drinking water and poor access to health care.
“Abandoning citizens to indefinite, unlawful detention in filthy, overcrowded and dangerous camps and prisons does not make Canada safer,” said Letta Tayler, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The lives of Canadians are on the line, and the time to bring them home is now.”
