(Swiss Info) Despite multiple pleas from international bodies, Switzerland refuses to repatriate adult detainees from Syrian camps, a policy that effectively leaves seven Swiss children stranded in the war-torn country.
They were just four and nine years old, when in 2016 their Swiss mother took them on a holiday abroad. It was to be a one-way ticket. Instead of returning to their home in Geneva, the two half-sisters were taken to Italy, then on to Greece and Turkey, before arriving in Syria, where their mother planned to join the Islamic State terror group (IS).
Now detained along with their mother in a Kurdish-controlled camp, Roj, in the northeast of the country, the girls made news headlines after their fathers sent a written plea for their return to all federal parliamentarians last March. Their letter prompted United Nations human rights experts to urge the Swiss authorities to get the two minors out of Syria.
