Grandstand. Sarah is a little French girl. She is an orphan and has been surviving with her older sister for three years in the Roj camp, in northeastern Syria. Sarah is traumatized to have seen her mother and her little brother die before her eyes.
Sohan, 8 years old, is a little French boy. He thinks of France, under the tent which shelters him as best he can from temperatures that can approach −10°C. Stunned with cold despite his anorak, he cannot fall asleep. A hope runs through his head: one day, he dreams of going to school, in his country, in France.
Sohan’s best friend is 6 years old: her name is Inès, she is French, like him. She buried her mother near the camp four months ago. Her mother had been ill for three years, and Inès, helpless, watched her dying. Sohan is unable to console her and Inès no longer speaks: neither her language, ours, nor any other.
Like 200 other French children, Sarah, Sohan and Inès are currently prisoners in the Roj camp. They have nothing to do with what happens to them and pay for crimes they did not commit. Their destiny was sacrificed first by their parents, and then by France’s refusal to repatriate them.
The victims
Sarah, Sohan and Inès are victims: they chose neither to go to Syria to join Daesh, nor to be born in a war zone, nor to grow up in a prison camp.
Mr President, you know it: these French children are innocent. Why do you refuse to release them from an endless nightmare? Almost all of them entered these camps before the age of 6 and survived there in atrocious conditions.
They suffer from malnutrition, dehydration, diseases, and do not benefit from any appropriate care. They are not educated and only have barbed wire as a horizon.
In 2021, a hundred children died in the camps in northeastern Syria. Are we going to make children pay for the crimes of their parents? Are we going to continue to turn a blind eye to this “Guantanamo for children”?
Since 1er January, 77 mothers and children prisoners of the Roj camp returned to their countries. Among them, 63 Europeans and no French. For fourteen months, France has not repatriated anyone, not even the little orphan she created by refusing the medical repatriation of her mother.
Save, Love and Protect
Mr President, don’t let these children slowly die out in these camps, don’t turn them into ghosts: they breathe, hope, think, and dream. Do not allow a devastating hatred to settle in them which could turn against us. Our duty is to save them, to love them and to protect them: while their childhood is stolen from them, their families are waiting for them here, in France.
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