(VOA) Canadian officials have so far shown little interest in repatriating any of the Canadian nationals still imprisoned among the former Islamic State fighters in Kurdish-run prisons in Syria, illustrating the wider problem confronting their U.S.-backed captors.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which spearheaded the struggle to drive IS from its self-declared caliphate in 2019, is still holding more than 10,000 members of the extremist group in its desert prisons, including an estimated 2,000 foreign nationals.
An estimated 50,000 additional wives, children and other IS sympathizers are being held in sprawling and squalid camps. But repeated SDF appeals for the foreign fighters to be repatriated and placed on trial in their home countries have largely fallen on deaf ears.
