Finland's secret school for children of ISIS fighters

Al Hol is a sprawling tent city in Syria housing around 60,000 people, mainly women and children

Kurdish fighter stand guard as Syrian child, suspected of being related to Islamic State (IS) group fighters, waits at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, before being released along with women and children to return to their homes, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

Children hold onto water containers in al-Hol camp, Syria. Reuters

An elderly Syrian woman waits to leave the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp holding relatives of alleged Islamic State (IS) group fighters, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

A child looks on at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp for the displaced in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

Syrian youths get food portions as they prepare to leave the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp holding relatives of alleged Islamic State (IS) group fighters, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

A Kurdish fighter looks on as Syrian women and children, suspected of being related to Islamic State (IS) group fighters, gather at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, before being released to return to their homes, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

Children look through holes in a tent at al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria. Reuters

Syrians wait to leave the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp holding relatives of alleged Islamic State (IS) group fighters, in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria. AFP

Russian children and an adolescent woman from the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds displaced families accused of being related to the Islamic State (IS) group, are handed over to a delegation from their country, in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli. AFP

Russian children from the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds displaced families accused of being related to the Islamic State (IS) group, are handed over to a delegation from their country, in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli. AFP

At home in Helsinki, Ilona Taimela scrolls through hundreds of WhatsApp chats with her former pupils — pictures of animals, maths sums and simple sentences in English and Finnish.

Last year, the teacher gave lessons to Finnish children imprisoned about 3,000 kilometres away in Syria's Al Hol displacement camp — using only the messaging app.

Al Hol is a sprawling tent city housing around 60,000 people, mainly women and children displaced by the US-backed battle to expel the ISIS militant group from war-torn Syria.

Teacher Ilona Taimela in Helsinki. AFP

Among them are thousands of children of foreign mothers who travelled to Syria to be the wives of ISIS fighters.

“Some of the children didn't know what a building is, what a house is, because they've always been in a tent,” Ms Taimela told AFP.

“There was so much that they needed to learn.”

Rights observers warn the camp's children are under constant threat from violence, poor sanitation and fires.

“It's a miserable place, it's out of control,” said Jussi Tanner, Finland's special envoy charged with ensuring the fundamental rights of the Finnish children in Al Hol, including access to healthcare and schooling, and eventual repatriation.

Extremist propaganda “is free to roam with no counter-messaging,” he said.

Mr Tanner had the idea of offering lessons by phone to Al Hol's Finnish children when pupils everywhere moved to distance learning at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

A girl at the new Children's Rehabilitation Centre for relatives of ISIS fighters in Al Hasakah, Syria. AFP

With the help of Finland's Lifelong Learning Foundation, officials engaged Ms Taimela, a specialist in teaching Finnish children abroad, and another teacher, to design and teach a curriculum.

With phones banned in the camp, the lessons would have to be in secret, and the politically sensitive project was also to be kept hidden from the Finnish public.

Mr Tanner forwarded details about the voluntary classes to the mothers.

“That same day … we got maybe eight children,” Ms Taimela said.

Soon 23 of around 35 Finnish children in the camp had signed up.

“Good morning! Today is Thursday May 7, 2020. The first day of distance school!”

Children at the new centre hosting ISIS fighters' relatives in northeastern Syria. AFP

Ms Taimela's first message to the children included a smiling selfie.

“The sun is shining here in Finland. What kind of weather is it there?”

Soon Ms Taimela and her colleague were exchanging hundreds of text and voice messages a day with the children, who were taught one or two subjects a day.

“The little ones would always get Finnish, and the older ones would get geography or history, and some of them also wanted to learn English.”

Sending photos used too much data, so the teachers relied on emojis, but soon realised there were no symbols for mathematical fractions or the ubiquitous Finnish blueberry.

Children play at the centre for relatives of ISIS fighters. AFP

“During the year the blueberry [emoji] arrived, so we were happy,” Ms Taimela says, laughing.

Despite knowing only scant details about the children, Ms Taimela said she and her colleague were “worried all the time about their welfare — especially when we heard that they were sick, or there was a storm and the tent had collapsed”.

Communication with some families would stop periodically.

“Some of them escaped the camp,” Mr Tanner says, “so they were actually taking part in the school while on the run in northwestern Syria in an active conflict zone.”

Others were suddenly repatriated and left the group for good.

After months of lessons, the mother of one six-year-old revealed her daughter could now read.

“Not all six-year-olds in Finland can do that,” Ms Taimela says, smiling. “It was a eureka moment.”

ISIS fighters declared a “caliphate” in large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, three years into Syria's civil war.

Ms Taimela says she feels “sadness rather than anger” towards the mothers who led their children into the conflict.

Many were vulnerable and believed the promises of jihadists that they would live in some “kind of paradise".

But several military offensives whittled away at the brutal ISIS proto-state, until in 2019 Syrian Kurdish forces declared it defeated.

Pupils learn at the newly inaugurated Children's Rehabilitation Centre in Al Hasakah. AFP

Reluctant Western nations have since brought home handfuls of their ISIS-linked nationals, mostly children.

Ms Taimela had accepted that she would never know what happened to the repatriated children she had taught, but one day she was called to a reception centre in Finland.

“It was an emotional few hours” meeting some of her pupils face to face for the first time, she said.

They “came very close” and Ms Taimela read to them.

“I just wanted to know, 'How is everything, what can I help with?'," she said.

Finland's foreign ministry has now repatriated 23 children and seven adults.

Mr Tanner told AFP that only around 15 “harder-to-reach” individuals, of whom 10 are children, remain in camps in Syria.

The issue originally proved divisive in Finland, but opposition has “become much more muted".

Ms Taimela's teaching drew to a natural close in mid-2021 and the ministry later made the project public.

She is now looking at how to use the innovative teaching model in other crisis zones or camps, and has received requests regarding Greece, Myanmar and Colombia.

“The Al-Hol teacher, that's my label now,” Ms Taimela smiles.

“But I'm proud of what we did”