“The government wants to repatriate the children [to Finland] as soon as possible,” Prime Minister Sanna Marin (the SDP) said at the press conference late on Monday evening.
“There’s no obligation to help the adults who are in the camp.”
This is the policy of the Finnish government regarding the about 30 children in Al Hol tent camp in Syria.
The adults, Marin was referring to, are women, the children’s mothers, and there are about 11 of them.
According to Marin, the government will not interfere in the work or judgment of the authorities concerning the repatriated individuals.
It’s a well-known fact, though, that the Kurdish-run camp has been reluctant to release the children without their mothers.
As of late, the Finnish media has been publishing various articles about, for example, secret plans of the Foreign Ministry to repatriate Finnish citizens from the camp without an official stand of the government.
Now the SDP, the Center Party, the Green League, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People’s Party have found a mutual agreement and brought it in the daylight.
Background
There are about 70,000 people, women and children, trapped in the Al Hol tent camp in Syria after the United States-backed forces destroyed the Islamic State in Syria and sent the surrendered women and their children to Al Hol, which is one of the refugee camps.
Of the Finnish citizens, 11 are women and about 30 are children.
They live in grave conditions. Some want to get out. But the prevailing opinion in Finland seems to be that they don’t want to accept people that could be involved in terrorism.
