Children of Turkish parents who joined ISIL in Iraq brought back

ANKARA

Seventeen Turkish children who were left behind by their parents who joined ISIL in Iraq have been brought back to Turkey, diplomatic sources said on Oct. 10, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The children, including toddlers under the age of three, were taken from Baghdad’s Salihiye Orphanage and were put under the protection of officials from the Family, Labor and Social Services Ministry late Oct. 8.

The children were reported to be in good condition.

A Turkish woman’s recent call on the authorities to save her two children that ended up in Iraqi prisons after being abducted by their father, who was an ISIL member, was widely reported in Turkish media.

Tülay Kaya recently learned about the whereabouts of her son and daughter, who were kidnapped by her former husband three years ago. Her son is in a prison in Erbil and her daughter is in a prison in Baghdad now.

Kaya told Vatan newspaper she had visited her 17-year-old son in the prison.

Kaya applied to the court four years ago demanding a divorce from her husband İrfan Küpecik. The court then ruled for the couple’s divorce, giving custody of the children to Kaya.

However, a while after the divorce, Küpecik took his son, who was 14 years old at the time, and daughter, who was 11 years old at the time, from their mother under the pretext of spending time with them and crossed the Turkey-Iraq border with them in May 2016.

Küpecik took his children to the Iraqi city of Tal Afar and was an ISIL fighter for two years. In August 2017, Küpecik was killed when the Iraqi army conducted an operation in the Tal Afar area.