Joly faces calls for probe in death of woman Canada refused to repatriate from Syria

By Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press on October 25, 2024.

OTTAWA – Advocates want Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to call an impartial investigation into the death of a Canadian woman the federal government refused to repatriate from a Syrian detention camp.

In a letter to Joly, Sen. Kim Pate and human rights activist Alex Neve say the Quebec woman died unexpectedly just over a week ago in Turkey.

Pate and Neve were part of a delegation that met the woman and her six young children in 2023 in a Syrian camp run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The federal government helped the children come to Canada this year, but refused to repatriate the woman, publicly known only as F.J.

Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who has assisted the family, says Ottawa cited security grounds in declining to help the mother return.

The letter to Joly says the woman escaped from al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria, entered Turkey in March, and was apprehended and imprisoned by Turkish authorities three months later.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2024.

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