Home secretary yet to respond to Save the Children letter asking how she intended to bring home British minors LONDON: The UK Home Office has been accused of “alarming inaction” after making no apparent attempts to bring back any stranded British children from Syria for eight months, despite pledges from senior ministers to help them. An estimated 60 or so British children are trapped in northeast Syria in camps run by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Charity Save the Children has been campaigning to bring these children back to the UK. In October 2019, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that “unaccompanied minors or orphans” in Syria could be returned to the UK. When three orphans returned in November, he hailed the move as “the right thing to do” and said: “These innocent, orphaned children should never have been subjected to the horrors of war.” But since then, it appears that no more children have been returned to the UK through the scheme. Home Secretary Priti Patel has yet to respond to a letter sent by Save the Children in December 2019 that asked how she intended to start bringing home British minors. Orlaith Minogue, conflict and humanitarian advocacy adviser for Save the Children, said she was “extremely frustrated” by the UK government’s “alarming inaction.” She added: “We’ve repeatedly tried to engage the Home Office and Foreign Office on a progress report about what is happening and the state of the children’s safety, but we have received no further information or what steps have been taken.” Other European countries have been quicker to act. Last month, the French government brought home 10 children of suspected Daesh fighters from northeast Syria. Since Daesh was defeated in March 2019, France has repatriated 28 children from Syria. A Home Office spokesperson said the COVID-19 pandemic had suspended all refugee resettlement activity, but would restart “as soon as possible once conditions allow.” The issue of repatriating Daesh members and their families has gained increased attention in recent weeks since a high-profile court ruling that Shamima Begum, a British teenager who joined the group when she was 15, could return to the UK to fight the legal battle over her citizenship status.