Organisation sues Denmark for failure to evacuate children from Syrian camps
Campaign movement Repatriate the Children (RTC) plans to sue the Danish state for its failure to evacuate five children from Syrian detention camps.
The organisation is to sue Denmark on behalf of the five children, who have Danish citizenship but have not been evacuated from detention camps in Syria, newspaper Politiken reports.
The children have not been evacuated to Denmark because their mothers have been stripped of their Danish citizenships and will not consent to being separated from the children, which would enable Denmark to evacuate the children under government policy.
The camps are used to detain former Islamic State (Isis) militants and their sympathisers.
While the five children have not been extracted from the camps, 14 others are to be evacuated along with their mothers, who still have Danish passports.
This constitutes preferential treatment of some children over others, the organisation argues.
READ ALSO: Denmark to evacuate dual national from Syrian camp in exception to own policy
“Children are innocent and children should be treated equally, and this is exactly the same as if you, at a school on Læsø [Danish island, ed.] where there were 12 children, told five of them they can’t go to school. It’s that simple,” the RTC group’s lawyer Knud Foldschack told Politiken.
Foldschack argues that Denmark is breaching Danish law and international conventions by not giving the children access to correct medical treatment.
The lawsuit is to be sent to the Danish foreign ministry on Friday, according to the report.
The ministry told Politiken that it would address the lawsuit once it has been received.
According to a report submitted by a government task force in May, Denmark is not obliged to evacuate the three women who are the children’s mothers, along with the five children.
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The organisation is to sue Denmark on behalf of the five children, who have Danish citizenship but have not been evacuated from detention camps in Syria, newspaper Politiken reports.
The children have not been evacuated to Denmark because their mothers have been stripped of their Danish citizenships and will not consent to being separated from the children, which would enable Denmark to evacuate the children under government policy.
The camps are used to detain former Islamic State (Isis) militants and their sympathisers.
While the five children have not been extracted from the camps, 14 others are to be evacuated along with their mothers, who still have Danish passports.
This constitutes preferential treatment of some children over others, the organisation argues.
READ ALSO: Denmark to evacuate dual national from Syrian camp in exception to own policy
“Children are innocent and children should be treated equally, and this is exactly the same as if you, at a school on Læsø [Danish island, ed.] where there were 12 children, told five of them they can’t go to school. It’s that simple,” the RTC group’s lawyer Knud Foldschack told Politiken.
Foldschack argues that Denmark is breaching Danish law and international conventions by not giving the children access to correct medical treatment.
The lawsuit is to be sent to the Danish foreign ministry on Friday, according to the report.
The ministry told Politiken that it would address the lawsuit once it has been received.
According to a report submitted by a government task force in May, Denmark is not obliged to evacuate the three women who are the children’s mothers, along with the five children.
READ ALSO:
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