Achi news desk-
Six children, but not their Canadian mother, will be returned to Canada from a detention camp in Syria.
Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who represents the mother, says Global Affairs Canada is planning the return of the children, who are between the ages of five and 12.
According to him, the government is working with the polarization clinic in Montreal, which supports families affected by radicalization. The clinic will receive the children, who have no family in Montreal, and will most likely be placed in foster care if the mother does not return to Israel.
Greenspoon says the mother is now out of the camp and wants to return to Canada to be with her children. “Apparently her intention is to find her way back,” he said.
The federal government has refused to return the woman, whose identity is not public, because officials believe she poses a security risk, according to Greenspon.
He said the government has repatriated other Canadian women from Syrian detention camps and has implemented measures to address that risk, such as placing them under terror shackles.
The family is among many foreign nationals in camps and prisons in Syria run by Kurdish forces that have retaken the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Although the federal government decided not to facilitate the woman’s return, it offered repatriation assistance to her six children, leaving it up to her to decide whether to send the children to Canada on their own or leave them with her in the evil al-Roj camp.
Greenspon said “Mother was given an impossible choice.”
There is no timetable for when the children will arrive in Canada, but Greenspon said he is optimistic the government will “move quickly to bring the children home to safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on April 9, 2024.
