Cabinet ministers must act on repatriating British children trapped in northern Syria “on the basis of our standards, not our fear”, an expert on victims of war said today.
Conservative peer Baroness Helic, a key figure in the campaign against rape in war led by actress Angelina Jolie and ex-foreign secretary Lord Hague, said that “children should not be made to pay for the sins of their fathers or mothers”.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC: “Where you’ve got orphan children or children who are unaccompanied minors, without their parents, there’s no security threat, of course we will seek to repatriate them.”
Only days ago Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, who led British forces in the Iraq war, said there were still “corridors” to evacuate about 60 British children after Islamic State’s collapse but that the situation was “changing rapidly”.
Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace have raised security concerns.
