Syria's Kurds have handed over 14 orphans born to families of Daesh terrorists to government delegations from France and the Netherlands, in the latest repatriations of foreigners living in crowded camps. Abdelkarim Omar, the top Kurdish foreign affairs official, said Monday that 12 French and two Dutch orphans were handed over on Sunday. The transfer marks the latest small step in efforts to resolve the problem posed by the huge numbers of stranded foreign terrorists and their families in Syrian camps. The children, the oldest of whom is aged 10, had been held together with tens of thousands of people who fled recent fighting against the Daesh group. Kurdish officials handed over "12 orphaned French children from Daesh families to a delegation from the French ministry of foreign affairs," Abdulkarim Omar said in a statement. He said the transfer took place in the town of Ain Issa on Sunday and added that two orphaned Dutch children were also handed over to a government delegation from the Netherlands. There was no immediate comment from either France or the Netherlands. France has one of the largest contingents of terrorists who were captured or turned themselves in, together with their families, in the final stages of the US-backed Kurdish assault on the last fragment of Daesh's so-called "caliphate". French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last month that the number of French nationals currently living in Kurdish camps was between 400 and 450. Larger than expected numbers of families emerged from the ruins of the last IS enclave and the fate of tens of thousands of them remains unclear. France had already repatriated five orphans in mid-March and a three-year-old girl later that month. — Reuters
