Detained Islamic State Members Turn to Europe’s Courts to Come Home by Valentina Pop and Isabel Cole – Wall Street Journal
Jessie Van Eetvelde was a Belgian supermarket cashier who heard the Muslim call to prayer on a vacation in Morocco 11 years ago and converted to Islam. Back home she married a Dutch Muslim man, and in 2014 the couple headed to Syria to join Islamic State’s self-professed holy war.
Today, Ms. Van Eetvelde is detained in a camp in northern Syria, a widow caring for her two toddlers. She says she just wants to go home. But her country doesn’t want her—and is fighting a legal battle to keep her out.
“We hope to get back,” she said in a WhatsApp voice recording she made for The Wall Street Journal. “That’s what we all wished from the beginning, but probably nobody cares about us.”
European governments have resisted taking back their nationals who joined Islamic State in Syria, despite repeated entreaties from the Trump administration. Now Europe’s courts are weighing in…