Born to Orthodox Christian parents in Kazakhstan, Zarina converted to Islam aged 17. One year later, in 2013, she met a man online who was 21 years her senior. Zarina quickly moved to Turkey to marry him. The couple then crossed the border into Syria, where he joined so-called Islamic State. After six years, Zarina, tired of conflict, fled to the Al-Hol camp in northern Syria, where some 12,000 women and children from 40 countries are stranded awaiting transfer home or to a third country. On 9 May 2019, Zarina was repatriated to Kazakhstan on a special flight arranged by the government as part of a series of efforts called Operation Zhusan. Zarina is now in a rehabilitation centre in Aktau, western Kazakhstan.
Zarina’s story is not unusual. Between 2,000 and 5,000 Central Asian citizens travelled to Syria and Iraq between 2011 and 2018. Some married and had children there. Others went with their families, giving birth to more children in Syria and Iraq.
But as armed groups, including the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, have lost their territory, the remaining fighters and their families have ended up in Iraq or in the custody of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of different armed groups including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Many refugees, many of them children, lack documentation confirming their citizenship.
