Feds don't 'care if they die,' says lawyer helping Canadian children held in Syria
CTV
Five Canadian children are languishing in a squalid detention camp in northeastern Syria after Ottawa denied their mothers permission to come to Canada, says a lawyer fighting in court on behalf of the families.
Five Canadian children are languishing in a squalid detention camp in northeastern Syria after Ottawa denied their mothers permission to come to Canada, says a lawyer fighting in court on behalf of the families.
The development is the latest setback for Canadians among the many foreign nationals in ramshackle centres set up after the war-ravaged region was wrested from militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Lawyer Asiya Hirji said she sought temporary resident permits in February last year for two women with Canadian children in al-Roj camp, and heard last month they had been refused on security grounds.
One of the mothers has a seven-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. The other mother has a nine-year-old girl and boys aged seven and five. Her oldest boy has a serious eye condition that requires medical treatment.
Neither mother is a Canadian citizen. The Canadian fathers of the children are no longer in the families' lives.
Hirji, supervising lawyer at the University of Toronto law faculty's legal clinic, said the women signed confessions under duress in Syria — information Canada should not rely on.
She is now pursuing a Federal Court review of Canada's permit denial decision.
