BERLIN: Germany has repatriated from Iraq several children of jailed extremists, the foreign ministry said Friday, as the war against the Daesh group draws to a close.
“The number of minors already brought back to Germany has reached a high single-digit figure,” the foreign ministry source said, adding that the returns were carried out with the consent of the children’s parents.
They are now in the custody of their relatives in Germany, the source added.
Among the first young returnees to Germany were three children who arrived with their 31-year-old mother at Stuttgart airport on Thursday, their lawyer Mahmut Erdem said in a statement.
They were taken into custody immediately, the lawyer said.
According to the foreign ministry, at least eight Germans were jailed in Iraq, after they were convicted over their membership of Daesh.
The foreign ministry said it was aware of cases of German nationals in custody in northern Syria, but added that it did not have direct consular access to them as the embassy in Damascus has been closed.
Nevertheless, the government is looking for ways to repatriate the German nationals, it added.
With the collapse of the last Daesh bastion in Syria last month, the fate of foreign fighters and their families has become a significant problem for governments as the conflict against Daesh draws to a close.
The German interior ministry has said the children are innocent victims, paving the way for their return.
France last month took in five orphans and is dealing with returns on a case-by-case basis.
Germany repatriates Daesh children from Iraq
Germany repatriates Daesh children from Iraq
- “The number of minors already brought back to Germany has reached a high single-digit figure,” the foreign ministry source said
- The returns were carried out with the consent of the children’s parents
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
