Britain brings home ISIS-linked women and children from Syria camps | UK | News
According to the manager of the camp called ISIS brides, Britain quietly repatriated the women and children affiliated with the Islamic State who were held with Shamima Begum in Syria.
Six women, along with nine children, from camps held by the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were sent back to the UK without fanfare. As central authorities begin to retake territory from the Kurdish-led SDF, there are concerns that ISIS prisoners could escape from the chaos engulfing eastern Syria, The Times reported.
Begum remains in the camp while 29 Britons remain detained
However, the SDF retains control of the Al Roj camp near the Iraqi border where Begum and other British women are being held. A camp official told The Times that 29 women and children holding or carrying British passports remained in the camp, and that the camp would likely be handed over to the authority of the Damascus government led by the country’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Begum, from Bethnal Green in east London, was stripped of her citizenship as one of three girls who went to Syria to join ISIS in 2015 when she was 15. The other two girls are thought to have died in fighting between the western-led coalition and ISIS jihadists.
The outcry following Begum’s discovery by journalists while in SDF custody in 2019 forced the then Conservative government to declare she would not be allowed to return to the UK. This policy was also applied to other women after the last stand of ISIS fell to the SDF.
Minors returned under strict confidentiality conditions
Some unaccompanied children were allowed to return to the UK and were handed over to social services under conditions of anonymity. However, the young children who were with their mothers were forced to stay in Syria.
The UK’s official policy has not changed, but the Foreign Office has allowed a handful of women to return with their children on a case-by-case basis. Most of those repatriated were women who were taken to or traveled to Syria when they were under the age of 18.
In November, a report by the Independent Commission on Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice suggested that three adult women and 18 children had been repatriated, but only two women were publicly acknowledged; one of them returned with his son in 2022, and the other with a woman with five children in 2023. It is understood that two more families will return in 2024 and 2025.
The government is preparing to resume deportations to Syria of foreign criminals and those unable to seek asylum. The UK began voluntary repatriations following the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024. In November, interior minister Shabana Mahmood announced that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had begun investigating the possibility of forced repatriation for the first time in 15 years.
Details about the Begum and Roj camp were confirmed by the camp’s co-director Rashid Afrin. He said six British women and nine children had been sent home in recent years.
Chaos as larger camp is handed over to Syrian army
The fate of the remaining women and children remains unclear after the Syrian army, which launched an operation to end Kurdish autonomy in the northeast, captured a larger camp.
In the larger camp, Al Hawl, the handover was chaotic. As the army advanced, the Kurdish SDF withdrew its soldiers; This led to riots, arson and dozens of women fleeing.
The United States, which has been discussing withdrawing its forces from Syria, brokered a deal to transfer male ISIS prisoners to neighboring Iraq.
Children growing up with ISIS beliefs about apocalypse
Prisoners in the camps had languished under Kurdish protection for years after the end of ISIS’s so-called caliphate. As is the slogan of ISIS, the caliphate was supposed to continue and expand, but it was stuck in two prison camps in Syria.
In Al-Hawl, women raised their children in tents according to ISIS’s apocalyptic belief. The children were chanting this slogan while throwing stones at the visitors. Boys who reached puberty were forced to have sex with women in order to produce more “lion cubs” for the caliphate that lay behind a flimsy wire fence.
Cihan Hanan, who was the manager of al-Hawl until this week, said: “There was no preparation for the transfer. When I look at the videos and pictures that emerged, my heart hurts. The people inside are the indifference of the international community. At the end of the day, these are women and children.”
The SDF had called on countries to repatriate their citizens, but most refused. “Enough is enough, the international community must say enough is enough, this issue needs to be resolved,” he said.
Spouses and children of ISIS members range from extreme fanatics to those drawn into the extremist group or born to such parents, Hanan said.
