LONDON: The children of British IS brides are being returned to the UK from Syrian detention camps and put up for adoption, The Times reported.
At least 10 children — mainly orphans or those who have been left unaccompanied — have been quietly repatriated from the camps. Dozens of British women married to fighters traveled to Syria and Iraq during ISS peak, but were captured or left widowed following the collapse of the group.
The UK is only country in Western Europe that continues to block the repatriation of the women. France reportedly returned 160 of its citizens, including 160 children and over 50 women, and Germany repatriated about 100 children and their mothers.
The US has claimed that repatriation is the “only durable solution” to the problem of detention camps operating over capacity in Syria. Human rights organizations have warned that the camps are a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists.
Living conditions in the facilities are also poor, with Al-Hol, Syria’s largest camp, facing a series of disease outbreaks. Reprieve, a charity, has warned that the UK is avoiding responsibility in caring for its citizens.
Katherine Cornett, head of Reprieve’s unlawful detentions team, said: “It shames ministers and shocks the conscience that British kids are growing up in freezing tents in dangerously unstable detention camps simply because their government refuses to bring them home.
“The longer it goes on, the greater the chances that a British child will die in the camps, or that a British boy will be taken from his family by men with guns and thrown into an adult prison never to be heard from again.”