Danish woman evacuated from Syrian camps sentenced for aiding Islamic State

A Danish woman evacuated from a Syrian detention camp last year was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison by a Danish court for aiding Islamic State militants and illegally travelling to and residing in conflict zones, her lawyer said.

The 35-year-old woman travelled to Syria with her husband in 2013. When trying to escape Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in 2018 with the help of human traffickers, they were captured by Kurdish forces, who sent her to the al-Roj detention camp in Kurdish-held territory in northeastern Syria due to their association with Islamic State.

The specifics of her escape was unclear. The woman was separated from her husband during the escape attempt, and it is unclear what happened to him.

Last year the woman – whose name has never been made public – and her five children were evacuated by Danish authorities along with two other women and their nine children. In the same evacuation, Germany also took in eight other mothers and 23 children from Syrian camps.

The woman pleaded guilty to aiding Islamic State by working as a housewife and to illegally travelling to and residing in a conflict area, her lawyer told Reuters. The woman accepted the three-year sentence, the lawyer added.