France has repatriated 10 children from camps in
north-eastern Syria containing people displaced from territory
formerly controlled by the Islamic State extremist organization, the
Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
The 10 young children were all either orphans or vulnerable
"humanitarian cases," the ministry said.
A number of French families who travelled to Syria to join the
extremist group are detained in the Kurdish-controlled camps.
France has refused to repatriate any of its adult citizens from the
camps, saying they should be brought before courts in the region.
However, it has accepted French citizens who made it to Turkey and
were then deported by Turkish authorities.
Eleven French citizens were sentenced to hang in Iraq last year,
reportedly after being handed over to Iraqi authorities by the US-
and French-backed Kurdish forces who captured them in Syria.
The issue is a sensitive one for Paris, as Islamic State claimed
responsibility for most of the series of terrorist attacks in France
in 2015 and 2016 that cost more than 230 lives.
Jumana and Farhan al-Alyawi, a 8-year-old displaced Syrian twins from east Idlib, pose for a picture in a tent at Atmeh camp, near the Turkish border, Syria on June 19