”Each of us just wants to return to our family and arrange life back to normal, ” is the message of a Bosnian woman from the Al-Hol camp for families of suspected “Islamic State” militants in Syria.
The mother of four children contacted Radio Free Europe (RSE) with a message and described how they have been living in the camp for more than three years and that she just wants to “save the children and herself from suffering.”
“We would love if that deport came true and when finally our children and we could breathe fully without fear and live a normal life and in normal conditions,” writes a woman who went to Syria in 2013 with her husband and two children.
Her husband was killed fighting on the side of the militants, she had to remarry and had two more children during her life in Syria.
“Each day is difficult, the next one is even more difficult. We are afraid, but that fear, it seems to me, is common to us, we have forgotten for other ways,” wrote a woman whose name RSE will not be revelaed for her and her children’s safety.
RSE has information that slightly more than a hundred citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are in camps or prisons in Syria, with no indication of when they could be returned.
The competent ministry did not announce an official number, but BiH Foreign Affairs Minister Bisera Turkovic said in May 2022 at the meeting of the International Coalition to Fight the Islamic State in Morocco that 140 citizens of BiH were in Syria, and that plans for their repatriation were “still they are not made”.
The BiH Ministry of Security told RSE that preparations have been made and that the Ministry has fulfilled all the necessary conditions in the form of creating a legislative and institutional framework for the return of citizens.
The problem, however, is that the Council of Ministers, which has the final word, has not included the issue of repatriation of BiH citizens on the agenda of its sessions since February 2022.
It was only done on August 23rd. At the session on August 25th, this institution adopted the Return Plan for BiH citizens from Syria and Iraq.
States can learn from each other about the positive examples of repatriation and reintegration that exist, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says.
“States do not have to deal with this crisis alone. The support and advice of the ICRC and experienced NGOs and international organizations can be used. Also, international humanitarian law provides a practical plan on how these issues can be positively addressed,” the organization said, RSE reports.
E.Dz.
