KHARTOUM, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Sudan on Tuesday received eight children whose parents have been fighting with Islamic State (IS) in the Libyan city of Sirte since 2015.
The eight children, four boys and four girls aged between 10 months and nine, arrived at Khartoum airport before they were handed to their relatives in Sudan.
"The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) has kept on exerting continuing efforts to know the Sudanese in Libya and work to bring them back," Brig. Al-Tigani Ibrahim of the NISS said at a press conference at the airport.
He expressed appreciation for the concerned authorities in Libya, top of whom the office of the Attorney-General and the Libyan Red Crescent, for facilitating the transportation.
Meanwhile, representative of the Sudanese community in Misrata, Moataz Abbas, disclosed that six Sudanese women have been held in Libya for links with IS, and some of them are mothers of some of the transported children.
Hassan Abbakar Saqairoon, grandfather of four of the returned children, said he lost his daughter Hawa few years ago and later discovered that she left for Libya to join the IS.
"I haven't heard any news about my daughter, but I learned from the government that she was in Libya. Today I received four of my grandsons, but I do not know the fate of my daughter," Saqairoon said.
Foreign Ministry of Libya's Government of National Accord earlier sent letters to five countries, including Sudan, concerning children from different nationalities, pointing to possibility of facilitating their transport to their countries.
Sudanese authorities said tens of Sudanese youths, some of them carrying foreign passports have joined IS in Syria, Iraq and Libya, where local Sudanese media confirmed death of some of them.
