U.S. Seeks to Repatriate Family of 10 Americans From Camps in Syria
The State Department is working to repatriate a family of 10 American citizens stranded in Syria, where they are among the tens of thousands of people effectively imprisoned in desert camps and detention centers from the war against the Islamic State, according to officials.
The transfer would make them the largest group brought back to the United States from northeastern Syria, where they are being held by a Kurdish-led militia. The American government has repatriated 40 such citizens since 2016 — 25 children and 15 adults, according to the State Department.
The group consists of Brandy Salman, 49, and nine of her children, who range in age from about 6 to about 25, and all appear to have been born in the United States. Ms. Salman’s husband, who was from Turkey, seems to have taken her and their children into Islamic State territory around 2016 and was apparently later killed.
The detention centers in northeastern Syria typically hold the families of suspected Islamic State militants. Much remains unclear about the family’s interactions with the group before the collapse of the so-called caliphate.
That ambiguity, and the apparent delay in identifying them as Americans, reflects a broader, festering and complicated problem: Many countries have left their own citizens stranded in these camps, out of fear and uncertainty. One result is that tens of thousands of children are growing up there under brutal circumstances and are vulnerable to radicalization.
According to the account of one of the Salman children, a son who is now about 17, the family was taken into custody at Baghuz, where the Islamic State’s last major enclave fell in early 2019. Camp guards separated him from his mother several years ago under a disputed policy of removing adolescent boys.
It is not clear what the authorities intend to do with Ms. Salman, or where and how her family will be resettled. Some adults who traveled to Syria to join ISIS and were later brought back to the United States have faced prosecution on charges like conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, while others have not.
Her sister, Rebecca Jean Harris, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., said in an interview that about four years ago, F.B.I. agents came to her house to ask about her sister. Ms. Harris added that Ms. Salman, informed about that visit by text, cut off communications.
Public records show that Ms. Salman has lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York City and Michigan. Ms. Salman’s father, Stephen R. Caravalho, of Hot Springs, Ark., said in an interview that the family has had only sporadic contact with her for years, and that he last saw her in person during a visit to New York around 2006.
The Kurdish-led militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., has been the United States’ main ally in the region battling the Islamic State. It has been stuck holding about 60,000 people — most from Iraq and Syria, but about 10,000 from about 60 other countries — even though it is not a sovereign government.
The situation is messy for many reasons. The S.D.F. does not have comprehensive and accurate records about all the people it is holding. Many nations, particularly in Europe, have been reluctant to allow their citizens to return, especially men suspected of being militants. Among other concerns, some fear that under their legal systems, any incarceration would last only a few years.
Even children who were brought to the Islamic State by their parents are frequently stigmatized. About 50,000 displaced people, mainly women and children, live in the largest camp, Al Hol, where by some estimates half its population is under 12.
The United States has campaigned for other nations to ease the problem by taking back their citizens, as it says it does, and has offered to help. Last month, for example, it flew
