ARCHIVED - Government faces repatriation dilemma over Spanish women who joined IS in Syria

4 women are currently being held in Kurdish militia camps in Syria with their 17 children

Having studied their case since April the National Court of Spain has issued a detention order for three Spanish woman and a Moroccan whose Spanish husband died, after all four women travelled to Syria in 2014 to enrol in the ranks of IS. They are now living in two detention camps under the guard of Kurdish militia groups, according to the national newspaper El País, where they are attempting to bring up a total of 17 children aged under 18.

Two of the Spanish women, Luna Fernández and Yolanda Martínez, are in the camp of Al Roj, while Lubna Mohamed Miludi and the Moroccan Loubna Fares are in the Al Hol camp in the north-east of Syria. However, the Spanish government has not yet reached a final decision on whether to have them repatriated along with their children, despite reports that they are living in extremely unhealthy conditions.

The Ministry of the Exterior is examining the possible repatriation procedures (a process which has been adopted in France and Germany in similar cases), while the Ministry of the Interior is studying the implications for national security: at least two of the women are considered to be a security threat, and if they do return to Spain it can be supposed that they will face immediate arrest and prison terms of between 6 and 12 years.

This constitutes a considerable dilemma for the authorities, highlighted in May of this year by reports from Médicos Sin Fronteras that 8,000 women and over 3,000 of the children of Jihadists in Al Hol are being denied medical attention at the camps. In this context the Spanish women have expressed their wish to return home, claiming that they were unaware that their husbands were intending to take them to the conflict zone in Syria.

Yolanda Martínez, for example, grew up in Madrid and at the age of 22 married Omar el Harchi. Along with him she converted to Islam and travelled first to Morocco and then to Syria, where she states that IS gave them a house and financial stability. However, the Spanish police maintain that Omar el Harchi had close relations with the “Brigada Al Andalus” group which recruited militants for the Jihadist cause and travelled to Syria just a month before he would have faced trial, and that his wife was also involved.

These are complex cases not only from a legal point of view, but also in moral terms. On the one hand of course there is concern for the welfare of the women and their children, but on the other hand there are naturally worries about actively bringing Jihadists into Spain – in addition, there have been doubts expressed as to whether the women actually know that they will face imprisonment if they return to this country.

In France and Germany similar cases have ended with the children being repatriated – four of them to Germany and 12 to France – but in Spain it seems to be taking far more time for a decision to be released, and the issuing of detention orders will not result in the women returning to this country unless all of the relevant government departments are in agreement.

Follow Murcia Today on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news, events and information in the Region of Murcia and the rest of Spain: https://www.facebook.com/MurciaToday/.