06/08/2021 30min.

Bring Them Back: Manage the Risk

flickr: thierry ehrmann

Local and international media continuously tell stories about people who, after having joined the Islamic State (IS) a few years ago, cannot return home from Syrian camps.

These stories display the security dilemma that European governments have to deal with: how to manage the risk? By banning IS nationals from coming back home and not taking any responsibility for them, or by repatriating and prosecuting them? Balkan countries have also faced this dilemma in recent years. To read more about the repatriation of returnees, the options of the countries from the Western Balkans, the prosecution and reintegration of foreign fighters see the new publication of Asya Metodieva published by the Atlantic Initiative.