Five years after his wife kidnapped their son to live with the Islamic State in Syria, Afrim Berisha managed to rescue his son Alvin, who had been left in a refugee camp.
Alvin was only 6 years old when his mother converted to Islam, took him with her and abandoned his father in Albania, to join ISIS in Syria.
When Berisha, Alvin's father, realized what had happened, he decided to go to Syria and find his son.
Berisha told Euronews that he only thought about Alvin and didn't care about anything else. He added that he had considered the risk, but what to do?!
Just two weeks after his wife took Alvin, Berisha went to Syria. In the first week he arrived there, he was captured by ISIS.
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Berisha was lucky. He managed to escape from being captured by paying 500 euros to an Albanian ISIS fighter.
After that, he fled Syria, but returned every year to find Alvin, despite the danger that threatened him, but to no avail.
After a few years, Berisha received a letter from the little boy, asking him to bring him home. In this letter, Alvin told him where he was.
Alvin's mother had been killed during the fighting for Bahouz, in the east of the country near Deir el Zour. The boy was injured and was left alone. he stayed nearly six months in Al-Hol camp.
Thousands of other European ISIS children are believed to be in the camp. Lawyer Darien Levani told Euronews that he thinks that Afrim Berisha took the responsibility that the governments did not want to take" by returning Alvin home.
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Levani said: "The most important thing he did was to let the public know what was going on." According to the lawyer, this story helps the public to decide what to do with the European children living in those camps.
Tomaso Della Longa of the Red Cross said that some governments "have started discussions with us about the repatriation of other children. It is very complex that they cannot say that something will happen tomorrow. In the Middle East, the context is very unstable"/ Anelise Borges, EURONEWS.
