Iraq deported 33 children of former ISIS members to Russia in a single day, bringing the total number of children it has deported to 473 globally.
The children were born to Russian mothers who are being held by Iraqi police on suspected ties to the terrorist group. Their fathers are believed to have been killed in action.
The hundreds of children already deported and hundreds still in Iraq come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, including Russian, Tajik, Azerbaijani, German, French, Georgian, Belarusian, Finnish, Ukrainian, and Turkish, according to Iraqi officials.
Iraq’s foreign ministry has told its overseas missions to encourage all countries with nationals who joined ISIS and were caught in Iraq or Syria, including “women, children, and juvenile offenders,” to “coordinate with Iraq through diplomatic channels in order to receive them,” foreign ministry spokesman Ahmad al-Sahaf said Monday.
The children were sent to Russia as part of a multi-ministry commission under Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Anna Kuznetsova. A majority of the Russian children are from Chechnya and Dagestan, both Russian republics in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus. The commission believes as many as 700 other children of Russian citizens may have been taken to ISIS territories.
Unlike their parents, the children are victims of the terrorist group, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said during a meeting with Kuznetsova, adding that “a distinction must be made between humanitarian issues and terrorist crimes.”
What to do with the tens of thousands of children born to ISIS members remains a largely unanswered and complicated question. While some countries, such as Russia and France, have agreed to take the children in, others have rejected them, rendering those effectively stateless.
“We face a possible human time-bomb. Allowing these children to have an education, healthcare, simply the right to exist, is key to ensuring a sustainable future for them and for the country,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in an April statement. “A society cannot be at peace if it allows a generation of stateless children in its midst.”
In some cases, a lack of documentation has left children without access to basic necessities. Birth certificates issued by ISIS are not considered valid by Iraqi authorities, who have refused to give the children Iraqi citizenship if they are suspected of having ties to the terrorist group. Others lost their documents in the fall of the ISIS land caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
A lack of identification can prevent children from accessing education and critical healthcare services, most notably vaccinations. Later in life, they could be denied employment, marriage licenses, and the ability to own property, according to the council.
Parents and families of ISIS children are also being ostracized from their communities. Dozens of Yazidi girls captured and sold into sexual slavery by ISIS are being pushed out of their homes because their children were fathered by members of the terrorist group.
Human rights advocates and national security experts are concerned that if something isn’t done, the children could end up radicalized themselves. Some children were old enough to be indoctrinated while under ISIS supervision, which could raise national security concerns for their countries of origin. Those who were once under ISIS’ yoke await their fate in one of many overcrowded camps.
