My Son is Just Another Kid’: Experiences of children repatriated from Camps for ISIS suspects and their families in Northeast Syria

An 8-year-old boy in France loves Lego, dinosaurs, and wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up. A 5-year-old boy in Sweden enjoys hip hop music and choreographing dances for his siblings. A 5-year-old girl in another European country adores Disney movies, and can’t stop talking about “Bruno,” the character from the film Encanto. An 8-year-old boy in Kazakhstan loves math and learns poems by heart.

These children are all doing well in school and enjoy playing with friends. What they also have in common is that until recently, they were forced to live in detention camps for suspected members of the extremist armed group Islamic State (ISIS) and their relatives in northeast Syria.