The Diplomat
The Government is to repatriate in the coming weeks the Spanish women linked to Islamic State militiamen and their children who remain in camps for displaced people in north-eastern Syria, government sources confirmed to Europa Press.
The intention of the Executive is to bring back to Spain the three Spanish women as well as a Moroccan woman married to a Spaniard and at least 16 minors in their care who remain in the camps of Al Hol and Al Roj, the sources said.
An international arrest warrant issued by the Audiencia Nacional has been pending against the four women since September 2019. Three of them are widows of Islamic State militiamen, while the husband of the fourth is being held in a Syrian Kurdish forces prison.
An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited these Spanish women before the summer in order to establish the conditions for their eventual repatriation to Spain, as Europa Press learned from diplomatic sources a few weeks ago.
This official went to the Al Hol and Al Roj camps in order to “meet with the Spanish citizens who were there and establish the conditions for repatriation, once the security conditions are met”, the sources indicated at the time.
The government’s decision to finally repatriate the Spaniards in both camps comes in the wake of the massive repatriations carried out by many Western countries, including France and Germany, in recent months.
It now remains to be seen how and when the evacuation from Syria will take place and whether the Spanish government accepts the assistance offered by the United States to its allies, who are offering to help in the verification of identities and in the logistics of the operation to extract them from the displaced persons camps.
