Islamic State women and children from Kosovo escape Syria camps
Bedri Elezi, director for security studies at the Kosovo Institute for International Studies, who has been helping to repatriate ethnic Albanian relatives of so-called Islamic State fighters from the Middle East conflict zone, told BIRN on Tuesday that around 25 women and children have escaped from the Al-Hawl and Ein Issa camps in northern Syria.
“For the moment they are at the border with Turkey, hoping to cross over and finally come home,” Elezi said.
“Kosovo’s government should be in touch with Turkey’s and get them back. Doing so is a smaller risk, the bigger one is that these women and children join up with ISIS again,” he added.
Media reported that 700 women and children escaped from Ein Issa after shelling near the camp two days ago.
Before the Turkish military incursion into Syria began last week, over 50 women and children from Kosovo and around 52 children from Albania had been living in the camps for months.
Almost all the Albanian women and children were living in the Al-Hawl camp, but those from Kosovo were also in the Al-Roj and Ein Issa camps.
On April 20, Kosovo was able to bring home 110 of its citizens from the Syrian conflict zone – 32 women, 74 children and four men. However, others were left behind in the camps.
In Albania, a relative of two people living in the camps said he had appealed to Prime Minister Edi Rama to make efforts to bring them back.
“The reply that I got was that they could do nothing since the issue was complex and needed to be coordinated with other states as well,” Xhetan Ndegjoni, who has been trying to get his nephew and niece back for almost six years, told BIRN.
Ndregjoni said that he was concerned about the most recent messages he received from them on Monday.
“My niece Eva wrote to me from Al-Hawl that things there were not good at all and I don’t have any more clues what the future will bring,” he said.
Reports from Al-Hawl, which hosts almost 70,000 women and children from all over the world, say that the situation in the camp is difficult, with clashes between several groups, violent protests and continuous attempts at escape.
Turkey’s ambassador to Tirana, Murat Ahmet Yoruk, told a press conference on Monday said that the repatriation of ISIS fighters and women and children from Syria was a priority.
Yoruk said that Turkey was exchanging information with the Albanian government but didn’t give any more details about when a repatriation effort might be expected.
Source: Balkan Insight
