Children of Isis brides from UK repatriated from Syria for adoption
The children of Isis brides from Britain are being discreetly sent back to the UK and put up for adoption.
At least 10 youths are believed to have been repatriated to this country from detention camps for families in Syria following the fall of IS.
Among them, it has been reported, are two siblings, both aged under eight, who are currently being fostered in the southeast of England.
The children, who are awaiting adoption, lost their mother, who was British, after she was killed during fighting in Baghuz in eastern Syria in 2019.
Their father, who is not British, was captured and jailed in prison for foreign fighters following the collapse of the so-called caliphate, the Sunday Times reports.
The children were initially transferred with other relatives to al-Hol detention camp for Isis suspects in northeast Syria. However, they were later moved to a Kurdish-run orphanage.
Campaigners believe that one set of grandparents of the two siblings and who live overseas would be keen to look after them.
Their offer, however, is understood to have been declined by local authorities in the UK caring for the children.
Under existing guidelines, any prospective adoptive parent would have to be told about the siblings’ early years.
Save the Children and Reprieve, a human rights charity, estimate that about 60 women and children with links to Britain are stranded in the Kurdish-run detention camps in Syria.
The charities approximate that at least 38 children with links to Britain remain in the camps.
There are also believed to be 21 women from the UK currently living in the camps, including Shamima Begum, now 24.
In February 2019, Begum, from Bethnal Green, was discovered alive at the Al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.
The following day, Sajid Javid, the then home secretary, revoked her British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that the decision was lawful on grounds of national security.
Other Western countries have now agreed to repatriate citizens, with France reportedly returning more than 160 children and over 50 women.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Richard Barrett, former director of counter terrorism at MI6, said the refusal by the British Government to allow the women and children to return to the UK could be dangerous in the long term.
He added: “It is hard to argue that these women and children pose less of a threat, either now or in the future, while they remain poorly supervised, exposed to the influence of their former Islamic State comrades and at risk of further exploitation than they would if under the watchful eye of our highly competent security authorities in the UK, and of their own communities.”