“How can we leave children in such terrible living conditions? It’s inhuman”, slice Thierry Roy, founder of the united families collectivejoined by 20 minutes Thursday. They have sometimes lived for five years in Kurdish camps in northeast Syria. Many among the hundreds of French children, whose parents have joined the ranks of Daesh, do not know France, their family, their grandparents, uncles and aunts. Since the tactical fall of the terrorist group chased from Raqqa in October 2017, foreign women and children, including seven orphans or isolated children, including French people, have been parked in these makeshift camps, mainly those of Al-Hol and Roj. Thursday, 15 of these French women and 40 children were repatriated by the State. Their plane landed very early, in Villacoublay. “Good news” welcomed with relief by the relatives of these women and children, confides Thierry Roy.
His personal story is a little different from those of these families. Thierry Roy and his wife learned of the death of their son Quentin by a brutal WhatsApp message received in January 2016. That is, about fifteen months after his departure for Syria. He was 22, almost 23. They founded the United Families collective hoping to learn more about their son’s life under the organization of the Islamic State (IS). They haven’t heard from him since 2015, and even before, they had the feeling “that he didn’t speak freely”, breathes his father.
We hope that our compatriots will be able to understand our positions, which are in no way a message of complacency with regard to the choices of our children.
Did he get married ? Did he have children? And if so, are they also in the Kurdish camps? Here are some of the questions that “buzz them” and to which they hope to find answers thanks to the repatriation of the women and men who lived under the same regime as Quentin. “We are looking for information about him,” he explains.
And to do this, we need all the returnees. “The last time, I had an anxiety attack thinking of these many orphans that France refuses to repatriate. What if one of them was of my blood, my son’s child? I would do anything to get it back, but for that, I need the testimonies, that everyone comes in. We are never safe from a surprise in life, ”seems to hope Thierry Roy.
Indeed, “if ever this child exists, that it is the offspring of Quentin, it would be a hope for him to be able to grow up in good conditions”. These detained children receive “messages of love and hope from their families in France who believe that the fate of their parents was a gross mistake”. “We are families bruised by the departure of their child, we are trying to save our loved ones, this is part of our duty of humanity and we hope that our compatriots will be able to understand our positions, which are in no way a message of complacency about our children’s choices. We do not endorse! “recalls Thierry Roy firmly before adding:” But children are not responsible for what their parents have done.
“Let justice be done”
The urgency, once again, is essential. Some children are about to live their fifth winter in these Syrian camps, where the temperature can drop to -10 degrees. “We cannot resist this temperature, in appalling conditions, in winter, with stoves which can burn the tents!, protests Thierry Roy. Even the cattle in France pass the winter in better conditions, on the farms. “How can we leave children in such terrible living conditions?” It’s inhuman, ”repeats the bruised father.
And then, “justice must be done, that these women answer for their choices, we must shed light for our compatriots affected by the attacks in France, but also for the families who do not understand, there is a duty to truth “. Among the women repatriated in July was the widow of Samy Animour, one of the three assailants of the Bataclan. It could have shed some light during the trial on the attacks of November 13, 2015, which ended a month earlier. “France therefore had on hand for years a woman who probably deserved to be in the box at V13, at least to be heard there. Disappointing”, had thus regretted on Twitter Arthur Dénouveauxpresident of the association Life for Paris, which brings together victims of the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis.
The government seems to have changed the doctrine on a case-by-case basis, to adopt that of “the lottery”, judge Thierry Roy. Some 16 mothers and 35 minors had been repatriated on July 5. Meanwhile, a woman and her two children had been brought back in early October. But still a few dozen women and especially nearly 200 children are still in the camps, he says. France was condemned last September by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of the repatriation of families of French jihadists to Syria.
