Pressure mounts on government as France and Germany repatriate minors from Syria and Iraq

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Lawyers for Shamima Begum, the teenager who left the UK to join Islamic State, are attempting to bring at least three British children born to fighters for the group to the UK, a move that will intensify scrutiny of the British government’s apparent reluctance to repatriate minors from Syria.

The children, all of whom have British mothers, and one of whom was born in the UK, have been identified in a Syrian refugee camp.

Begum, who was heavily pregnant when, in February, she made her plea to be allowed to return to Britain, gave birth to a boy in a refugee camp in northern Syria just days before the Home Office stripped her of her British citizenship. Her son died from pneumonia less than three weeks later.

Tasnime Akunjee, Begum’s lawyer, pointed to moves made by other countries to retrieve the children of Isis fighters. “We have a legal facade saying that there is nothing we can do – yet other countries are repatriating children,” he told the Observer.

On Friday, Germany announced that it had brought home several children of Isis militants from Iraq.

France has decided to repatriate five orphaned children of Isis supporters and has introduced a case-by-case approach to the return of other minors.

On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) increased pressure on the UK government, saying it was ready and willing to help repatriate vulnerable British children from the overcrowded refugee camps of north-east Syria.

Elodie Schindler, spokesperson for the ICRC, which has workers in the rapidly growing camps, said: “We are ready to help any government that faces an issue. Children are first and foremost victims.”

Schindler said the organisation was in contact with European governments but would not disclose if they were in talks with UK officials. “It is the prerogative of the government; we cannot force them to repatriate their kids,” she said.

In the wake of the death of Begum’s baby son, the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, suggested that the government would explore ways of returning children from Syria to the UK, yet no apparent progress has been made.

There's loads of unaccompanied children [in the camps] who are clearly of European descent. One-, two-, three-year-olds Tasnime Akunjee

Since US-backed forces cleared out the final Isis stronghold in the country last month, around 76,000 women and children are living in Syria’s al-Hawl refugee camp. Of these, more than 10,000 are believed to have travelled from outside Syria and Iraq, while around 1,000 are unaccompanied children.

“There are loads of unaccompanied children turning up who are clearly of European descent, but nobody knows who their parents are. We are looking at one-, two- and three-year-olds,” said Akunjee.

A report last year from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation revealed that at least 3,704 foreign-born children were taken to Isis territory by their parents or carers.

The three British children identified have different mothers, one of whom has already had her UK citizenship revoked.

Akunjee, a criminal defence solicitor at London law firm Farooq Bajwa & Co, is concerned that, if the identities of the individuals are publicised, the other two mothers risk losing their citizenship.

One potential way of enabling the children’s repatriation would be to bring them back without their mothers and make family members in Britain their legal custodians. The German children recently repatriated from Syria have been given homes with relatives.

Begum, who left the UK from east London with two friends in 2015, remains trapped in Syria and is preparing to instigate a potentially lengthy appeal against the removal of her citizenship.