UK To Repatriate British Orphans From Syria

British children whose parents have died in Syria are to be brought back to the UK, according to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

The Save the Children charity has praised the decision to repatriate a number of the orphans caught up in the Middle Eastern conflict.

In a statement, Mr Raab said: "These innocent, orphaned children should never have been subjected to the horrors of war.

"We have facilitated their return home because it was the right thing to do.

"Now they must be allowed the privacy and given the support to return to a normal life."

The Foreign Office has not released any further details at this stage, but the group is expected to return to the UK within the next few days.

The repatriation follows a visit by the UK's Special Envoy to Syria to the region, Martin Longden.

Dr Abdulkarim Omar, the de facto foreign minister of the self-styled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, announced that three children were handed over to the UK.

Mr Raab told MPs last month that, as long as there was "no security threat", children rescued from the fighting in northern Syria could be allowed to return home.

Former Brexit Secretary David Davis warned in a Commons debate in October that vulnerable British children risked "turning into terrorists" if they were not brought back.

It is believed that approximately 60 children are being held in Syria by West-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish militia-led group that came under Turkish attack for most of October.

Former Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt praised the government's action, but urged the UK not to "forget our obligations to all British children in that terrible situation, orphans or not".

Save the Children's head of humanitarian campaigns, Alison Griffin, labelled the move a "triumph of compassion in the face of cruelty".