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| - Four Albanian children and a mother returned to emotional reunions with relatives in their native country Tuesday, after a "very complicated" extraction from a camp for families of jihadists in Syria, the prime minister said. The operation to "bring these children out of hell" was a year-long effort, said Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who had travelled to Beirut on Monday to oversee the repatriation. "We have already prepared everything so that these children can have a special medical follow-up and we are in close cooperation with their families so that they can integrate and resume their normal life," he said. The returnees include a mother, who was in a wheelchair due to injuries, her three children and a fourth boy, 12-year-old Endri Dumani. Dumani and his sister were taken to Syria in February 2014 by their father, who died a few months later. More than ten relatives came to welcome the children at the airport, including Endri's mother Mide Dumani, who broke down in tears as she hugged the son she had not seen for seven years. "This is a great day for our whole family and for Endri as well," the boy's uncle Agim Ndregjoni said. "We are looking forward to Eva being with us as soon as possible," he added, referring to his niece who is still in Syria. Rama declined to give the total number of Albanian nationals who remain in the Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria but said authorities are "committed to continue to the next step and recover the other children". According to police sources, about 50 Albanian children whose parents joined the Islamic State and other jihadist groups are still in the camps. Since before the fall in March 2019 of the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria, Kurdish forces have managed several camps in the northeast of the country housing thousands of civilians who fled the fighting. The largest is Al-Hol, which also houses the wives of foreign IS fighters and their children. The Kurds, backed heavily by a US-led coalition in the fight against IS, have repeatedly demanded that countries of origin repatriate foreign fighters and their families. But many nations have been slow to oblige, other than to bring back orphans. bme/ssm/tgb
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