Indonesia has decided not to repatriate citizens, who joined Islamic State in Syria and other countries, the country’s security minister said on Tuesday.
“We have no plan to bring home foreign terrorist fighters to Indonesia,” Mohammad Mahfud said.
“Children under 10 years will be considered (for repatriation), but on a case-by-case basis, whether they have parents or they are orphans,” he added.
Indonesia has for months wrestled with the question of whether it should repatriate citizens who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate.
A tearful plea by a girl named Nada Fedulla, who said she was brought to Syria by her father in 2015 to join Islamic State, has reignited the debate.
Fedulla told BBC that she wanted to go home.
“I’m really tired here. We’re thankful if there are people who forgive me,’’ she told BBC in a video released last week.
She said she did not know that her father would bring her to Syria.
“When I was in school, I really wanted to be a doctor and I really liked to study,” she said.
Aref Fedulla, Nada’s father, is now prisoner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the BBC reported.
In 2019, the SDF seized Islamic State’s last stronghold in eastern Syria after months of fighting.
Indonesia’s counter-terrorism agency said the country’s nationals in Syria – mostly women and children – were located in three camps.
Indonesia has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks since the 2000s, with recent attacks being blamed on Islamic State-inspired militants. (dpa/NAN)