fbpx

Jihadis' wives and children arriving in Portugal

isisIn the coming months, around 20 women and children of jihadists, currently living in territory controlled by the extremist Islamic State group, will start to arrive in Portugal.
 
"The return of women and minors is expected to increase in 2018," including "more than two dozen descendants of national citizens," according to Adélio Neiva da Cruz, director of the Security Information Service (SIS), at a seminar on terrorist victims.
 
"The return of these women and children poses a problem for  the security forces and the justice system, while raising social issues that need to be resolved by the Portuguese State.
 
“These women and children should be welcomed in Lisbon, or in other European countries where they have family roots, without any hostility. That is, instead of being detained - as will happen to each of the Portuguese jihadis who are the target of an international arrest warrant - the best thing is reinsertion,” said the SIS director.
 
These family members of jihadis will able to apply for Portuguese nationality.
 
The situation for the 10 -20 children born to jihadis of Portuguese descent is even more "complex" as some of them may have been seriously damaged due to the armed conflict.
 
The latest internal security report warns of the possibility of returning "youth without background" but already "shaped by the ideology of the jihad" and "exposed for years to the violence of the Daesh soldiers, considering their practices as normal, legitimate and appropriate."
 
The document concludes that the "younger ones play a key role in perpetuating the ideal of the 'caliphate' even after the loss of territory."
 
A source from the security forces said that, "It has to be determined in which environments these minors lived."
 
The number of Portuguese jiadistas was around 20 but by now this known number is smaller due to fatalities.