A Canadian woman has been released from an ISIS detention camp in northeastern Syria, following the earlier release of her four-year-old daughter, Global Affairs Canada has confirmed.
The woman left the Syrian Al-Roj ISIS detention camp with the assistance of a former U.S. diplomat and is now in Erbil, Iraq.
ISIS fighters and their wives, widows and children are scattered throughout camps in northern Syria, which is under the control of the Kurds. It’s estimated that more than 25 Canadian women and children are in Al-Roj camp alone with eight Canadian men accused of being ISIS fighters incarcerated in Kurdish prisons.
The mother, who is not being named, is reportedly from Edmonton and was thought to have left Canada sometime around 2014. Her husband, a member of ISIS, was killed in the last days of fighting.
This is the first time an adult Canadian has been released from the camps and marks a milestone, according to Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who previously assisted getting then-five-year-old orphan Amira home from Syria.
“It’s very significant because all along Global Affairs Canada has been telling us, ‘We can’t repatriate the 40-plus Canadians that are over there because we have security concerns and we don’t have consulate relations,’”Greenspon told CTV National News. “Clearly now with this third person assisting with repatriation, and with two children and now an adult being repatriated – those security concerns are no longer real.”
The woman is thought to have been released this weekend with the help of former U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, who assisted with repatriating her four-year-old daughter in March after she had relinquished her custody over the child so she could live with her aunt in Canada.
Galbraith, who has strong ties to the Kurdish administration in Syria, previously told CTV National News London Bureau Chief Paul Workman that he stepped in to help “because he can.”
CTV News has reached out to Galbraith but he was not immediately available for comment.
In the case of the woman’s daughter, the Canadian government assisted with travel documents for the child, however Global Affairs Canada told CTV National News in an emailed statement that in the mother’s case, they were not involved.
“Global Affairs Canada is aware that a Canadian citizen has crossed from Syria into Iraq. The Government of Canada was not involved in securing the individual’s exit from Northeastern Syria,” the statement reads, adding that due to the Privacy Act no further information can be disclosed.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair said that “for privacy and security reasons” the minister cannot comment on any specific cases, but reiterated that “it is a Criminal Code offence to travel abroad to engage in terrorist activity. Those who leave Canada to fight for terrorism are utterly reprehensible and when the evidence warrants it, our goal is to arrest, charge, prosecute and convict them.”
The statement said that of the small number of ISIS fighters who have returned to Canada, 13 have been charged and four have been convicted. It is unclear if and what charges the woman will face if she returns to Canada to be with her daughter.
Canada has repeatedly refused to send diplomats into Syria, citing the volatile nature of the area – despite several other countries like France and Belgium repatriating women and children from ISIS camps.
In February, the UN and Human Rights Watch Canada released a statement accusing Canada of failing to live up to its new international campaign against arbitrary detention because of the country’s lack of action regarding children stranded in Syria.
With this latest release, extremism researcher and assistant professor at Queen’s University Amarnath Amarasingam says Canada may be missing the chance to have control over the repatriation process.
“We had a ballooning of prisoners in the late stages of the war in early 2019 and they’ve been in the camps ever since,” Amarasingam said. “After being left to languish in these camps for years, these women and their families are finding other ways to get out. So instead of this controlled repatriation where the Canadian government can monitor what’s happening and charge them upon their return, they’re kind of continuously caught off guard.”
Amarasingam said the Kurds’ usual policy of only releasing ISIS prisoners with the involvement of their respective governments “seems to have gone out the window,” which raises the question of “why her, and why now?”
“It is a little bit bizarre,” he said of the mother’s release. “There are a lot of rumours floating around about what may have been the reason for her to be able to leave in this instance.” Amarasingam said he had spoken to other families who have daughters and other family members in the camps, and “they’re asking, ‘why not my daughter, why not my grandchildren?’”
Amarasingam said the Canadian government also faces a bit of a dilemma when it comes to the actual process of repatriating the woman from Erbil to Canada.
“The Canadian government has always kind of tongue-in-cheek said, ‘If you can get to a consulate in Turkey or Iraq we are then obligated to help you get those travel documents,’ knowing full well how difficult that would be for these women and children in the camps or the men in a prison to make it across several borders into Canadian government hands,” he explained. “But that seems to have happened in this case, now that she’s made it to Iraq they are obligated to get her these travel documents as she is a Canadian citizen but how long that will takes and what happens when she arrives – we will have to wait and see.”
Director of Families Against Violent Extremism Alexandra Bain, who has extensive experience interviewing extremists overseas, says the Canadian government needs to step up and take responsibility.
“I don't feel comfortable until they've been brought home safely and assessed by the Canadian government and the Canadian Security Services, and then are released – not having them randomly walk around in Erbil until the Canadian government gets its act together” Bain said.
Canada and its allies met virtually Monday to discuss the situation in Syria, which marked a decade of war this month. They committed to meeting the vast humanitarian needs of the people left behind the bloodshed, but the repatriation of former ISIS fighters or their families was not discussed.
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With files from CTVNews.ca's Alexandra Mae Jones
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