France said Tuesday it repatriated 25 children and 10 women from a camp in northeastern Syria holding people linked to Islamic State fighters.
The move is the latest in a series of repatriations by France this year amid calls by the United Nations for countries to boost efforts to take in their nationals from the camps.
France’s foreign ministry said the adults would be processed through the justice system while the children would be put in the custody of child services.
Thousands of people traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State group after it declared a caliphate and seized control of large areas in both countries.
A U.S.-led international coalition helped see the territorial defeat of the group, but thousands of people remain in camps in northeastern Syria with countries reluctant to repatriate them.
The al-Hol camp holds 50,000 people, mostly women and children, while another 10,000 people including 2,000 from outside Iraq and Syria are in detention centers, according to the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a coalition meeting last month that “repatriation is critical” to reducing the populations of both the camps and detention centers, citing the risk of militants being able to take up arms again and for children to be condemned to “lives marked by danger.”
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
