Mazloum Abdi, the General Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), shared a message he sent to the International Coalition that is meeting in Rome to discuss the nature of the struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Abdi urged the Coalition to repatriate tens of thousands of ISIS members and their families who are currently being housed in North and East Syria. “The anti-ISIS Coalition will meet tomorrow to discuss progress towards the enduring defeat of ISIS. To ensure sustainable victory, we must not forget that tens of thousands of women, children and ISIS fighters remain in SDF and North and East Syria internally displaced people (IDP) camps and detention centres,” said Abdi onTwitter.

Abdi appealed to the Coalition to help return the ISIS families and members to their home countries as well as to “fund education and de-radicalisation programmes, and support stability and strong economic recovery in the liberated areas to address the root causes of extremism.”

Italy will co-host and co-chair (with the US) the Plenary Ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS alongside the United States on Monday in Rome. Hosted by the Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Luigi Di Maio, the meeting primarily aims to discuss how to sustain pressure on the remnants of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and how to counter ISIS networks elsewhere, including in Africa.

More than half of the 83 members of the Coalition will be attending the meeting at ministerial level, two years after the last formal meeting took place.

A statement by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) on 18 March called upon the international community to continue with its repatriation efforts for children and their mothers from al-Hol Camp, which it deemed “insufficient”, Rojava Information Centre reported.

AANES furthermore reiterated the need for international expertise to assist in setting up a criminal court to try ISIS members. Netherlands on 5 June repatriated four Dutch citizens, a woman and three children from Roj Camp.

This was the second time that the Netherlands has repatriated citizens from camps in North and East Syria: two Dutch orphans had previously been repatriated in June 2019.

Uzbekistan on 30 April also repatriated 24 women members of ISIS and 68 children from AANES.

Kurdish authorities have called for an international tribunal to bring ISIS suspects into its custody. This proposal has never been taken seriously by the international community.

Having not been officially recognised, AANES – where the majority of foreign ISIS members are detained – has not been able to prosecut ISIS members. Although the Kurdish-led coalition has repeatedly appealed to countries to repatriate their nationals detained as ISIS members in AANES, most countries have refused to act.