France repatriates 15 women, 32 children from Syrian jihadist camps

PARIS: France repatriated Tuesday 15 women and 32 children held in jihadist prison camps in Syria, the foreign ministry said, in the third major return of French citizens from the Middle Eastern country.Rights groups have been pressing for years for France to take back the wives and children of Islamist fighters held in the camps since the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019.But the government refused a blanket repatriation, saying the return of potentially radicalised IS family members would pose security risks in France, which has seen a wave of jihadist terror attacks since 2015.Instead it said individual cases would be examined, which saw the first group repatriation of 16 mothers and 35 children from Syria in July 2022, and a further 55 last October.The children returned to France on Tuesday were at the Roj camp in northeast Syria under Kurdish administration, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) from the Iraqi and Turkish borders.They