Belgian judge orders repatriation of children of Islamic State militants

A judge on Wednesday ordered Belgium to organise the return of six Belgian children and their mothers from a Syrian refugee camp overseen by Kurdish forces.

The children, all aged six or under, are the offspring of alleged jihadist fighters and Brussels has so far resisted calls for their repatriation.

Wednesday's ruling touches only on these six, but human rights defenders fear as many as 160 Belgian minors are trapped in the conflict zone.

A lower court had previously rejected a demand lodged by two women, each mother to three of the children, for their home government to intervene in the case.

But the Flemish-speaking Court of First Instance in Brussels has overturned that, ordering Belgium to take "all necessary and possible measures" to return them.

The state has been given 40 days to act or face fines of 5,000 euros per day per child.

And the court instructed Belgium to make contact with camp authorities, perhaps working through the diplomatic channels of a fellow European Union state.

Belgium must provide the children and their mothers with the appropriate identity papers to ensure a safe return.

As a proportion of its population, Belgium has been one of the main suppliers of Europeans travelling to fight for Islamist extremist groups in Syria and Iraq.

In all, more than 400 adults are thought to have left to join groups like the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda since 2013, and a much smaller number have returned.

But jihadist factions are under pressure now, both from US-backed Kurdish forces in the east of Syria and from the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian government.

European governments fear returning jihadists will bring violence home but the presence of non-combattant family members has complicated security policy choices.

Belgium has argued that it has no consular representation in a Syria gripped by war since 2011, and is unable to help Belgian families there.

But Kurdish officials denounce the failure of European governments to take responsibility for what they say are 584 women and 1,250 children in their zone.

In the Belgian case, the two mothers aged 25 and 26 are in the Al-Hol refugee camp in far north eastern Syria, only a short distance from the Iraqi border.

"They have no freedom of movement," Anouk Devenyns, a court spokeswoman and magistrate, told AFP as she commented on the ruling.

If the mothers are detained as suspected extremists on their return, they will be allowed to maintain contact with their children in Belgium, she said.