BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A Brussels court ordered the Belgian government on Thursday to help bring to Belgium 10 children who were born in Syria to Islamic State fighters of Belgian nationality.
The children, aged between seven months and seven years, must be brought to Belgium within six weeks, the court said. They are now at the Al-Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria which is under Kurdish control.
If the government does not comply by providing consular assistance and administrative documents for the children, it will be fined 5,000 euros (4,295.40 pounds) per child per day, the court said.
Belgium’s justice minister, Koen Geens, told public radio the government was ready to take back the children as long as it did not have to take in their mothers as well.
Last month the court requested that the government take back within 75 days a woman whose husband fought for Islamic State, and her two children.
