WASHINGTON — The US government announced Tuesday it had repatriated 11 US citizens from northeast Syria, including five minors, in what the State Department described as the largest single repatriation of Americans from the war-ravaged territory to date.
As part of the operation, Washington resettled in the United States a 9-year-old non-US citizen sibling of one of the American minors. It also facilitated the repatriation of six Canadian citizens, four Dutch citizens and one Finnish citizen.
Five years after the Islamic State lost its last remaining territory in Syria, tens of thousands of suspected fighters and their families are packed into makeshift detention centers and camps in northern Syria under the control of US-backed Kurdish fighters who say they lack the resources to indefinitely hold them.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the only “durable solution” to the crisis “is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing.”
“As governments undertake repatriation of their nationals, we urge thoughtfulness and flexibility to ensure that to the maximum extent possible family units remain intact,” Blinken said in a statement.
Some foreign governments have dragged their feet or flat-out refused to repatriate their nationals stranded in northern Syria, including at the squalid al-Hol and Roj camps for women and children in Hasakah province.
According to the State Department, the two camps house more than 30,000 people from more than 60 countries. A majority of them are children.
