Why was this Irish boy left in a camp?
Child born in Rotunda was last spotted in Syria – now he’s missing
A DUBLIN-born boy with Irish citizenship, who fled Isis in Syria along with Lisa Smith and her daughter, will remain in serious danger if the Irish Government does not intervene, experts say.
Abul Malik Bekmirzaev, 6, fled Isis with his mother Irina Paltarzhyskaya, and Ms Smith who was last week returned to Ireland and charged with membership of the Islamic terrorist organisation.
The whereabouts of the boy who was born in Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital in 2013 – a year before his parents brought him to Syria as a baby – are unknown.
The boy, who endured years of war in Syria, speaks English and lived with Ms Smith and her daughter Rakaya, 2, in two camps in Syria. Abdul Malik is the son of naturalised Irish Isis prisoner Alexandr Bekmirzaev, who is currently in a Syrian prison after being captured by Kurdish forces last January.
Previously the boy’s Belarussian mother appealed for their return to Ireland, and said
‘The militias keep moving us like animals’
they were being moved by militias.
‘We don’t know where we are going, they keep moving us, we are always brought from one place to the next like animals,’ she told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘I am always frightened and don’t know what to do. I came here because I was told I should be with my husband. We were tricked,’ she said in the sprawling Al Hawl camp last March.
Abdul Malik was last seen in a video filmed by the Turkish-backed militia who took both the boy and Lisa Smith out of the Kurdish-run camp in Ain Issa following Turkish bombardment of the area. In the video, Smith is seen advising her daughter to ‘go play with Abdul Malik’ as she speaks to the media.
While the Irish government kept track of Smith’s movements and helped to organise her repatriation from Turkey, it seems they did not maintain contact with the six-year-old born in the Rotunda.
The boy would have travelled to Syria as a baby on an Irish passport, which means the Department of Foreign Affairs can issue the boy with an emergency travel document.
Despite this, no moves have been made to return the boy to Ireland and the Government is believed to be working on stripping the boy’s father of his Irish citizenship after he is believed to have obtained it via a ‘sham marriage’.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said: ‘We are aware of reports of a child called Abdul Bekmirzaev who was previously in a camp in Syria with his mother. It would not be appropriate to comment on this or any other individual case.’
Solicitor Wendy Lyon of Dublinbased Abbey Law said Ireland should not choose to repatriate one child over another.
‘Abdul Malik is also an Irish citizen’s child and the State has the same obligations towards him that it has to Lisa Smith’s child,’ Ms Lyon said.
‘Why is he being left behind? If he was born to an Irish citizen he is also an Irish citizen. ‘They can’t leave him in Syria in the hopes that they may eventually be able to strip his father’s citizenship in a way that would apply retrospectively and invalidate his own entitlement to citizenship.’
Bekmirzaev, who hears voices and was described by other prisoners as ‘a very strange man’, was recruited in Dublin by an infamous Isis recruiter who was kicked out of the country by the Gardaí.
The former Lillie’s Bordello bouncer was told by the Isis fanatic that he had to do his ‘duty to Islam’ to clear himself of the demons that had possessed his mind.
A source close to the family said if the boy and his mother and father are repatriated to Belarus they will face problems with the Belarussian security services, the KGB.
‘Alexandr will be killed if he is sent back,’ the source said.
‘The KGB are following this story and Irina will face a terrible time with security services.’
‘Abdul Malik is also an Irish citizen’s child ’