AANES hands over 104 ISIS-related people to Tajikistan

Tajikistan repatriated 104 women and children from camps for Islamic State (ISIS) family members in northeast Syria, Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

The ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the group included 31 women and 73 children, and five citizens of Kazakhstan; a mother and her four children.

ISIS lost its final stronghold in Syria in March 2019. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the support of the US-led Global Coalition, defeated ISIS after fierce battles in the town of Baghouz in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, bringing an end to the so-called caliphate declared by the terrorist ISIS.

After Baghouz, thousands of ISIS fighters were transferred to prisons, while their families were transferred to Hawl and Roj camps in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES)-held areas.

Issue of the family members of the ISIS held in camps in northeast Syria constitutes an ongoing challenge for the non-internationally recognized AANES, which repeatedly demands that the concerned countries repatriate their nationals.

In July 2022, the AANES handed over 146 children and women of ISIS from Tajikistan, to their country’s delegation.

The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the SDF defeated ISIS militarily there.

Source » npasyria