Mother's tears as she receives 'I love you' note from son held by Islamic State
Tuesday 26 February 2019 21:57, UK
By Alex Crawford, reporting from east Syria and Paris, France
A mother whose son is one of the hundreds of foreign children trapped in northeast Syria has told Sky News that her son does not deserve to be punished by being stranded there.
Her 13-year-old son - who we're calling Pierre - is one of the boys now being looked after at a secure centre for the so-called Cubs of the Caliphate - the young children groomed by IS to be the militants of the future.
The woman, who lives in Paris, sobbed as we read her a letter from her teenage son.
He was taken away from her by her ex-husband four years ago to live under Islamic State (IS) rule.
His case vividly illustrates the dilemma facing Western governments about what to do with their nationals now trapped in Syria.
British teenager Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she went to Syria but is now 19, has had her citizenship revoked by the UK government.
The row is ongoing about whether she should be allowed to come home and her family are expected to take the case to the courts.
More than 2,500 children from more than 30 countries, from families with perceived or actual associations with IS, are living in three detention camps for displaced people in northeast Syria, according to Save the Children.
When Sky News visited the only known rehabilitation centre for the 'cubs', we found dozens of youngsters - many of them children of foreign fighters.
Few governments want to take responsibility for the children; far fewer want to bring them home.
In perfect French, Pierre told us he was taken to the caliphate when he was just nine years old.
His father - who had separated from his mother - told Pierre he was taking him and his two older brothers on holiday to Turkey (a common theme among many of those now fleeing the caliphate).
Instead of Turkey, the boys found themselves in Raqqa - Islamic State's de-facto capital - and the caliphate is where they stayed for the best part of four years.
When we saw him, he was in a geography lesson at the rehabilitation centre which is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces on the Iraq-Syria border.
All the boys there were under 18 but no younger than 10.
Pierre spoke lovingly of his life before the caliphate, how he missed Disneyland Paris and his mother.
He gave us handmade gifts for his mother and a letter he had written to her. The letter had a big heart on the front and he had scribbled "I love you" on it.
He urged us not to read it and begged us to take the gifts and note to his mother in Paris.
A couple of weeks later, once we were able to reach France, we did just that - delivering the bag of gifts to his fraught mother at her apartment in a suburb of Paris.
We showed her the Sky News report and pictures of her son and within seconds tears began to run down her cheeks.
She asked us to read out the letter he had written and Sky producer Sophie Garratt did so, slowly, emphasising the words so she could take it all in.
"Hello Mum," the boy had written. "How are you? What have you been doing? How is my sister (name withheld)?
"Mum, I promise I love you so much and I have never forgotten you and, inshallah (God-willing), we will be together.
"Mum, I remember when you, me and my sister (name withheld) went to McDonald's and then to the park. I enjoyed those times together and, inshallah, we will return to these times."
By this stage, his mother was openly sobbing, burying her head in her hands and weeping uncontrollably, shaking.
Sophie paused, waiting for her to compose herself. She signalled to us to carry on.
"Mum, I promise you every day I think about you. I pray for you and I hope that you pray for me.
"Inshallah, we will be together. Mum, since 2015 when I went, I pray to God we will be together again.
"Mum, there's plenty to eat and to drink here and every day I play sports, and I have even learnt Arabic.
"Mum, every Tuesday, speak to me on the phone and, please Mum, pray that we will find one another again and I will pray too. I love you."
It was the genuine, sweet words of a child missing his mum.
We have found out that his father is being investigated by the French authorities over the Bataclan theatre terror attack in the French capital in 2015.
It was a night of co-ordinated terror attacks in Paris and shook the country to its core. Pierre and his brothers were whisked away to Syria by their father that same year.
Pierre said both his older brothers had been killed in a bombing while in Syria and he believed his father was dead too.
But we have since discovered there is no confirmation of his father's death and the French counter-terrorism unit is working on the theory he may still be alive.
His mother is absolutely desperate to bring her boy home.
She is furious at her ex-husband for taking her sons to Syria.
She clenched her fists as she said: "I'm really, really, really angry about him taking my boys away from me and to that place. It's not right."
"My boy (name withheld), is a gentle, sweet boy. He was scared of his father. He was nine years old when he was taken there.
"He had no choice, none at all and he would not have wanted to go to Syria. He would have wanted to stay with me, here. This is his home. He knows no other one."
She urged the French authorities to bring her son back to the only home he knows.
Her situation is likely to be complicated because of her Chechen refugee status in France - which allows her and technically her children too citizenship until 2027.
The French authorities have already signalled they are prepared to repatriate their foreign fighters after the SDF warned it would release them if Western governments did not take responsibility for them.
The French government has also rescued, from the caliphate, several dozen very young children, all around five to six years old, who are now in social care.
But, so far, no one has even been in touch with the centre in east Syria to inquire about Pierre's future - or that of other French young boys there.
Pierre's mother is bewildered and confused about who to approach or how to get her son out of the rehabilitation centre.
The managers of the centre told us all the boys had been found in "compromising positions" with suicide belts on; with weapons, fighting, or they were the offspring of caliphate leaders.
The centre was heavily guarded and had cameras everywhere, even in the dormitories, because of the risk of being attacked or fights among the young clientele.
Many of the boys spoke of having nightmares after seeing executions and amputations and told us how they yearned to go "home", wherever it was.
Since the discovery that her son is alive, Pierre's mother has spoken to him three times on the phone but still has no idea about the location of the centre, or the logistics of trying to return him to France.
"If I could, I want to go to Syria myself and bring him back," she told us. "I've got to get him out of there."