Ten Belgian children and six mothers have been recovered from a prison camp for captured militants in Syria and flown home to Belgium, the government said Saturday.
The operation was the biggest such repatriation since the battlefield defeat of ISIS in 2019, and follows Belgium's decision to secure the return of under-12s.
The adult mothers were taken into custody on their return to Belgium late Friday, and child protection authorities will interview the minors and assign them to social services, AFP reported.
"The priority has always been to get the children to safety. All the operations were carried out according to the pre-established plan," Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said.
The premier thanked Belgian officials and "the Iraqi authorities, the Kurdistan Regional Government as well as the local de facto authorities in northeastern Syria."
The group is from the camp in Roj, in northeast Syria, where surviving suspected members of the group are being held under the supervision of Kurds.
De Croo announced in March that his country would do what it could to secure the return of the youngest, describing it as a matter of national security.
Belgium's extremism monitoring agency OCAM says mothers and children who have spent time in the camps need to be kept under watch, which is easier if they are on Belgian soil.
Heidi De Pauw, of the Child Focus NGO, praised the "courage" of the Belgian government and said she was happy the children had been able to "leave the dangers of these war zones".
The effort to recover the group took place in several stages and began in June, when a consular mission went to Roj to collect blood samples to verify the parentage of the children and their Belgian nationality.
For security reasons, it was not possible to visit the larger Al-Hol camp where many foreign fighters are still present.
