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Two prominent French lawyers have lodged a complaint with the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) to urge France to return children from camps in northeastern Syria. Five children orphaned by French jihadists were repatriated Friday in France.
Lawyers Marie Dosé and Henri Leclerc filed the complaint Friday on behalf of five French families whose grandchildren, nieces and nephews are currently in the camp of Al-Hol in north-eastern Syria under Kurdish control.
Most of the 10 children are under six years old.
"It's urgent, they're exposed to cold, hunger and life-threatening diseases," Dosé told RFI, citing tuberculosis, dysentery and cholera.
In the past three months, she said that dozens of children have died in the Roj and Al-Hol camps.
The situation in the Al-Hol camp, where most of the French children are, is disastrous.
"Four children died last week, three were burned alive because their tent caught fire when the gas cylinder used to heat the tent exploded. A child died of pneumonia, "she says.
A violation of the International Convention against Torture
Dosé represents the families of 50 French children and estimates that there are between 80 and 100 in the camps.
She says that France has violated the UN International Convention Against Torture, which she signed.
"By refusing to repatriate all his children," said Dosé, "France violates this convention because it exposes them to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."
A strong symbol, but not legally binding
This is the second complaint filed by Dosé at the UN. Two weeks ago, she addressed the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child about forty French children detained in the camps.
Even though she admits that neither one nor the other of the UN committees plays the role of a court and does not have the power to punish or punish, it "has the power to order France to respect its international commitments, it is one thing."
The Commission for the Rights of the Child has already asked France to react to the first complaint.
The first children return to France
On Friday, the French government announced that it had repatriated five orphans from northeastern Syria whose mothers died and fathers died or disappeared.
Children, aged five years or younger, were placed under medical supervision.
Three brothers should live with their grandmother who spent more than three years trying to bring them to France.
This is the first time in five years of conflict that France is bringing children from Syria back home. officials said earlier that most mothers refused offers to let their children be taken home and placed with relatives.
Last Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron said his government was taking a "humanitarian" approach on a case-by-case basis for children, while recalling that its position on "adult fighters and jihadists who followed the IS in the Middle East had not changed.
"They must be judged where they committed their crimes," he said.
Case-by-case selection is "shocking discrimination"
Dosé denounces the government's selection of children on a case-by-case basis.
"It's even worse to say that we are going to take your five children because you are an orphan but your mother is still alive, you will be left to die in a camp.This kind of discrimination is particularly shocking."
She and Leclerc argue that all French children must be brought back to France and that the mission last Friday, organized in 48 hours, shows that it is possible.
"The first lesson from all of this is that it is very easy to bring back children. There is no physical problem, logistics. The second lesson is that France is ready, at the level of its institutions, to welcome these children. Social services, penitentiary services are prepared, everything is in place. "
The presidential half-round
What remains to be done is that President Emmanuel Macron demonstrates political will.
And that has weakened in recent months.
In January, shortly after the United States announced its intention to withdraw its troops from Syria, the French government officially declared that French jihadists could return home with their families.
And in early February, France made the decision to repatriate 70 children and 60 adults.
"As soon as the children were identified at the beginning of February," said Dosé, "they were supposed to be repatriated with 60 adults, everything was ready. There was a list of children, a list of adults and American planes were to bring them back to France, but Emmanuel Macron turned around. "
France has announced that no mother would be allowed to return with her children: a hard position shared by the United Kingdom.
According to Dosé, the publication of an opinion poll in March indicating that two out of three French people opposed the return of jihadist families here scared the government.
But she is convinced that the public is badly informed.
"For the past three years, the French have been told that their children are time bombs. This is not true. 70% of them are under six years old and it is because they are left there, abandoned, that they turn into time bombs. "
Picked up and groomed by all that is left of the Islamic State armed group, Dosé says they risk being transformed into child soldiers, radicalized by the idea that France has "abandoned them to their fate" .
"Whatever your political party or profession, all those working on these issues agree that we are making terrorism by leaving these children there."
& # 39; Fear of our own children & # 39;
Dosé is originally from Lorraine in eastern France and explained how, in 1945, the French of Lorraine had adopted 50 Nazi children from orphanages in Germany.
"We managed to adopt the children of our enemies and now we are afraid of ours, it's just confusing."
An online petition launched last week by Leclerc and she for the repatriation of children of French jihadist brides has been signed by more than 4,500 people.
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