By Adam O’Neal, The Wall Street Journal
Sabinella Ayazbayeva has had a life filled with many events unlike most young women from Kazakhstan. Born in 1990, she has been married since she was 19 years old. Sabinella moved to Syria in 2014 with her husband and children, where she joined the Islamic State.
An airstrike left her widowed in 2017. Together with her 5 children she ended up in Al-Hol, a camp for the families of ISIS fighters. After more than a year of living full of uncertainty in the Syrian desert, the family returned to Kazakhstan. She was 29 years old.
“I want my kids to forget what happened,” she told me in an interview with a translator on Zoom. “My life is returning to normal,” Sabinella added. Meanwhile for the 62,000 people who continue to suffer in Al-Hol camp, life remains far from normal. Most of them are Iraqis or Syrians, while 9,000 have come from other countries.
The Syrian Democratic Forces run the 736-hectare camp, with very limited resources. Severe climatic conditions and poor hygiene can be deadly. And some of the guards still follow ISIS’s interpretation of Islam: Dozens of people in this “mini-caliphate” have been killed this year alone, and at least 10 of them have been beheaded.
The Trump administration oversaw the repatriation of more than 24 U.S. citizens. Some were fighters, but Washington also facilitated the return of women and children. This was America at its best: so it offered the children of terrorists the chance to have a normal life, while prosecuting those who had committed crimes.
But the US has found it very difficult to persuade its allies to follow suit. Thousands of European Union citizens joined ISIS several years ago. Many of the survivors remain trapped in Camp Al-Hol, rejected by their home countries.
After years of lecturing Americans on the harsh conditions at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay, European leaders are now watching from afar as EU citizens stranded in a Syrian Guantanamo Bay, albeit without the facilities of a Caribbean prison. The Biden administration is putting pressure on Europe on this issue. But his success has been limited. “Many girls wanted to come with us, but Kazakhstan could not accept citizens of other countries. “Those girls envied us for leaving,” said Ms Ayazbayeva.
Many people have fled these camps. Some have secretly returned to European countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, but no one can know their exact number. Repatriation at least gives governments the opportunity to keep track.
“Kazakhstan has taken a very bold step, being the first country to repatriate a large number of its citizens,” said Chris Harnisch, a State Department official in the Trump presidency who was involved in the issue.
The government of Kazakhstan repatriated 607 of its citizens, through a program called Operation Zhusan. Most were women (157) and children (413). Thirty-seven adult male fighters faced prosecution upon their arrival in the homeland. Meanwhile, 32 women and 89 other children returned on their own. The Kazakh government has sent women and children to rehabilitation centers, where they undergo a lengthy process to help them reintegrate into society.
Some return completely disappointed, while others remain committed to ISIS. A woman tried to smuggle some ISIS propaganda leaflets into Kazakhstan, using a child’s toy.
“We are trying to get these people back to normal. We would like to see them as ordinary people. “This created a lot of debate within the country, but the government was determined,” Kazakhstan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yerzhan Ashikbayev told me earlier this year.
“The United States put a lot of effort into helping the Kazakhs design, build, and then implement their own rehabilitation programs,” said Ambassador Nathan Sales, State Department counterterrorism coordinator.
According to him, the countries worked together to “build programs based on the latest knowledge in areas such as childhood trauma, education experts and religious authorities.” Bibigul Assylova, Deputy Minister of Education and Science, says that at first be difficult to establish a relationship with them.
When some of the children were painting “most of the drawings had to do with the bombings”. But children “rehabilitate much faster” than others, and Ms Assylova estimates that more than half of repatriated children attending school have become excellent students.
Mr Sales notes that “so far, the data is good”, but warned that without sustained attention, such a policy would not succeed. Kazakh officials acknowledge that some participants in the rehabilitation program have radical views.
Ashikbayev says law enforcement agencies can help mitigate the risk, but “we probably will not have 100 percent, and we will definitely have problems everywhere.” Without landlocked, Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic, is far from being a human rights paradise.
Freedom House calls it a “consolidated authoritarian regime,” but for ISIS families Kazakhstan has taken a more humanitarian approach than many European democracies. The country’s leaders see a major principle more at stake.
“It has to do with identity. Kazakhstan is a very young nation. We gained independence only 30 years ago. “The repatriation program clearly shows that we are not only a peaceful society, but also that we would like to preserve our identity as a state,” Ashikbayev said. / Translated by: Alket Goce-abcnews.al
