The federal government says it is considering helping to secure the release of 19 Canadian women and children being held in the northeast Syria.
The move comes just before supporters of the six women and 13 children are to argue in the Federal Court that the Liberal government’s long-standing refusal to repatriate them – as well as several Canadian men – violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms . ,
In a new document filed in the court case, the government says Global Affairs Canada determined that all 19 Canadians have met a threshold under its policy framework for providing extraordinary assistance.
As a result, Global Affairs has begun an assessment, under the framework’s guiding principles, to determine whether to provide assistance.
A handful of women and children have returned to Canada from the region in recent years, but for the most part, Canada has not followed the path of other countries that have successfully repatriated citizens.
The Canadian citizen is among several foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces that recaptured the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.