Feds assessing potential repatriation of Canadian women and children held in Syria: document
CTV
The federal government is looking at potentially helping to secure the release of 19 Canadian women and children being held in northeastern Syria, a recently filed court document says.
The federal government is looking at potentially helping to secure the release of 19 Canadian women and children being held in northeastern Syria, a recently filed court document says.
The move comes just as family members of the six women and 13 children get set to argue in Federal Court that the Liberal government's long-standing refusal to repatriate them — as well as some Canadian men — amounts to a breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A document filed this week in the court case says Global Affairs Canada has determined the 19 Canadians have met a threshold under its policy framework for providing extraordinary assistance.
As a result, Global Affairs has begun assessments under guiding principles of the framework to determine whether to provide that assistance, says the agreed statement of facts, dated Dec. 1.
A handful of women and children have returned to Canada from the region in recent years, but for the most part, Canada has not followed the path of other countries that have successfully repatriated citizens.
The Canadian citizens are among the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
As of last July, a total of 26 Canadians were part of the action against the government being argued in Federal Court next week.
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