Sweden won't help citizens held in IS camps return: FM

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (AFP) - Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Wednesday that the country would not offer aid to return Swedes that had joined the Islamic State group and were currently held in camps in northeastern Syria.

"The government will not act so that the Swedish citizens and persons with connections to Sweden who are in camps or detention centres in north-eastern Syria are brought to Sweden," Billstrom said in a statement to AFP. 

"Sweden has no legal obligation to act for these individuals to be brought to Sweden. This applies to women, children and men," he continued.

The Islamic State group's fall in 2019 in Syria created the problem of what to do with the families of foreign jihadists captured or killed there and in Iraq.

More than 43,000 Syrians, Iraqis, and foreigners from at least 45 countries are held in the squalid and overcrowded Al-Hol camp in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria.

Billstrom said that the remaining Swedes, had for several years been offered opportunities to return to Sweden, but had "refused again and again."

The minister added that Sweden was facing a deteriorating security situation and it could not rule out that returning adults could pose a security threat upon their return.

Broadcaster TV4 reported that five children with connections to Sweden remained in camps in Syria.

However, Billstrom stressed that "the responsibility for the children lies with their parents, who have chosen to travel to Syria to join IS, one of the world's most cruel terrorist organisations."