- Hamza Hamki
- Journalist
On the 12th of this month Sanada Selimović (45 years old) arrived in northeastern Syria, on the fifth attempt since 2019, in a new attempt to meet her daughter who lives in a camp for ISIS families in the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Party Strength.
Eight years ago, sadness loomed over the Sanada family, who live in Vienna, the capital of Austria, with her husband and son, as well as her daughter’s two granddaughters, who had joined the family through government efforts on 2 October 2019.
How did the underage girl travel alone?
The story of the family, originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, began on April 10, 2014, when Sabina (15 years old at the time) went to school and did not return, until her family realized that she had been “deceived” and joined the extremist organization in Syria.
Sabina’s mother told me: “That day we tried to call her, but her phone was switched off. My husband went to his friend Samra’s family. But we were surprised that she didn’t come home too.”
He adds: “In searching through Sabina’s belongings, we did not find her passport. We informed the police, who assured us that she could not leave Austria due to her age.”
But the next day, it turned out that the police statements were not accurate, as the family learned that Sabina and her friend Samra had left Vienna’s Schwechat Airport towards Istanbul – Adana, according to the mother.
“The Vienna airport police made a serious mistake when they allowed two underage girls to cross without an escort or written parental consent,” she says.
pointed file
image copyright AFP extension
The Syrian Democratic Forces guard a camp housing relatives of ISIS members in northeastern Syria
The issue of ISIS foreign family members detained in Syria is a very thorny issue with a timid response from governments around the world.
Tens of thousands of displaced people and those who used to live in areas controlled by the so-called “Islamic State” live alone in Al-Hol, a miserable camp located in a remote and isolated area.
According to the statements of the resident of the United Nations and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Imran Reda, “Al-Hol is not a place for children.” Of the 56,000 people, 50% are children under twelve.
According to camp administration statistics, the number of women is over 16,000, including 2,420 foreign women from more than 50 countries. While the population of the Roj camp is 2,506 people, 97% of whom are women and children.
image copyright Reuters
More than 50,000 people currently live in al-Hol camp, the largest camp for families of ISIS fighters
Al-Hol camp is witnessing various acts of violence: up to the middle of this year, about 30 people, mostly women, have been killed, according to United Nations statistics.
The dossier of returning foreigners to their countries faces major challenges and Kurdish local authorities have always called on countries to repatriate their nationals, but so far the response seems weak.
In the absence of accurate statistics, the number of European women and children currently held in camps is estimated to be close to 1,000 women and more than 640 children.
France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom are among the main European countries of origin of these people.
According to reports, around 60 Austrians have traveled to Iraq and Syria in recent years and joined extremist organizations.
Foreign fighters from Austria are believed to be mostly second-generation immigrants from Chechnya, Turkey and the Balkans, but Austria has so far not taken a clear stance on the repatriation of its citizens.
mother cup
image copyright Sabine’s mother
Sanada Selimović, Sabina’s mother who dedicated her life to her daughter’s cause. Qamishli, northeastern Syria.
After the loss of Sabina, her mother vowed to make it her “life’s main problem,” so she says she has been to Syria many times and spared no effort to get information about her daughter.
But her commitment didn’t stop there, as she tried to help make known what happened to a greater number of families affected by the same problem, writing a book entitled “Sabina”, published in Bosnia in November 2021.
image copyright Sabine’s mother
A book written by Sabina’s mother, in which she sheds light on the suffering of families whose children have joined ISIS.
Since 2014, Sabina has called her family several times, but the last call her mother received from them was on March 10, 2019.
At the time, however, clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and ISIS fighters were raging in the village of Al-Baghouz, its last military stronghold in eastern Syria.
The mother recounts: “On the thirteenth of the same month, Sabina left with her two daughters, accompanied by hundreds of families, from Al-Baghouz, to reach the Kurdish forces and the Al-Hol camp, but she was shot in the arm the way.”
And he continues: “My daughter suffered severe bleeding from the wound, and lost consciousness, until the families took her to a hospital in the camp.”
During this tiring journey, Sabina asked the women who were with her to help her two children, giving them their mother’s telephone number.
But his family in Austria was unaware of any of these events until April 4 of the same year. When a woman in Vienna whose daughter-in-law was in al-Hol camp informed her that Sabina was dead.
Despite this “shocking” news, the mother started looking for confirmed information about what happened to her daughter.
Sabina’s family wasn’t the only ones looking for her daughter, but there were other families living in Austria trying to find information about their members who had joined the organization.
The mother, Sanada, says: “We, as families, were in constant contact to find out the fate of our children. All sources indicated that my daughter had died and her two children were in the care of a Syrian woman.”
image copyright SOULEIMAN EVIDENCE
A French woman in a refugee camp in Syria in 2021 where relatives of ISIS members are being held
When and how did the first meeting take place?
A few days after hearing this news, Sanada traveled to Syria to find the sons of Sabina. He was part of a group of Austrian journalists and several parents looking for their children.
But the surprise that happened was not taken into account, as the mother found her daughter in the camp hospital. I found her wearing a niqab, her face was not visible. I just stared into her eyes.
The mother says, “I recognized my daughter. We were staring into each other’s eyes. She raised both hands and motioned me to calm down and not to make any movement that might attract attention.”
Meanwhile, he asked his mother to leave immediately. But she was allowed to search for her daughter’s sons in her field for only two hours.
“Despite my feelings of fear, I felt very happy that my daughter was still alive,” Sanada says.
Despite her frequent visits to Syria, the woman only had the chance to meet her daughter once during her first trip, but she was unable to speak to her.
A Kurdish official told me, “We cannot hand people over to their families, because the matter requires their countries’ approval to return them through official methods.”
According to information, “Sabina” now lives in the “Roj” camp, in the extreme north-east of the country, as confirmed by her mother.
In her last contact with her mother, who had recently managed to enter Syria, she appeared tense, but she didn’t give up and tried in every possible way to find a way to show her her daughter, with whom she had completely lost her contacts four years ago .
