6 Canadian children to return from Syrian detention without their mother

Six Canadian children are on the verge of leaving a Syrian prison camp and returning to Canada without their mother, who cannot return with them because her security assessment has not been completed by federal officials, advocates for the family say.

Alexandra Bain of the group Families Against Violent Extremism said the federal government gave the Quebec mother till today to decide whether her children would join other Canadians on the repatriation flight which is expected to depart soon or remain with her in Syria, said Alexandra Bain of the group Families Against Violent Extremism.

Bain said: “I’m shocked. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not how I expect Canada to behave.”

The Canadians are part of the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps manned by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-ravaged region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Bain, whose organization helps families with loved ones caught up in violent extremist groups, said the children, whose age ranges from three to 16 years, have no family in Quebec. At least two of the six children were born in Syria. There is a plan for Quebec social service agencies to place the six children in care, in three groups of two.

She said the mother has no idea if or when she will be permitted to leave al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria and she is worried about how she will maintain contact with her youngsters.

She said: “She’s doing this for her children. And she’s terrified that she’s doing the wrong thing.”

Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who is assisting the family, added: “It’s not a choice that any parent should ever have to make.”

Bain and Greenspon requested that the woman’s name should not be published owing to the sensitivity of the case and related privacy concerns.

Greenspon has said in Federal Court on behalf of many men, women and children detained in Syria that Global Affairs Canada must work for their return and that failure to do so violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In January, Greenspon reached an agreement with the federal government to return home six Canadian women and 13 children that had been part of the court action. All 19 are will be on the imminent repatriation flight from Syria.

There was hope that the Quebec woman and her six children would also be boarding the plane together.

Greenspon noted that though the children have been cleared to leave Syria, their mother is still undergoing a federal security assessment.

Separating a mother from her children infringes on Canada’s international commitments and the government’s policy for assessing possible repatriation cases, Greenspon said. “Their own policy framework says that they shouldn’t be doing this.”