Within days, his
half-brother was killed, and shortly afterward he spoke to his mother
for the last time, telling her she would be notified if anything
happened to him.
In late December, Bons
received a text message explaining that Nicolas has been killed in "an
explosives operation" -- that's all she knows.
"The body? There is no
body... I don't have a body," she says. "If he was killed in a truck
filled with explosives, the body... boom!"
Because no body has been
recovered, there is also no death certificate, meaning that --officially
at least, in France -- Nicolas is still alive.
For his mother, he
always will be. In her grief, she has written a poem -- added to the
treasured scrapbook -- telling her son: "You will exist in my heart
eternally. I love you."
Unlike Bons, one
anonymous French bus driver knows his daughter is still alive in Syria
-- but he is desperately worried that may not be the case for much
longer.
The man -- who asked not
to be identified out of concern for his daughter's safety -- says the
23-year-old converted to Islam and married a Tunisian man before moving
to Syria with the couple's two children.
The couple said they
were going there to do humanitarian work; they are now believed to be in
Raqqa, and safe -- for the moment at least -- but the city, an ISIS
stronghold, is a target of coalition forces.
And both father and daughter fear she could be arrested if she comes back to France.
He has a warning for other parents: "Pay attention... it could happen to you before you even know it."
David Thomson, author of
"The French Jihadists," believes there are many reasons why so many
French Muslims are becoming radicalized and heading to Iraq and Syria to
join militant groups.
"Religious frustrations,
material frustrations, perhaps a feeling that it would be a sin to stay
back in France, a desire to experience this historic moment and die
fighting the coalition," he explains.
Concerned at the growing
threat of radicalization, French authorities have introduced new
regulations in an effort to stem the tide of citizens traveling to the
Middle East to join the fight.
"We had to change our rules in different ways," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius explained to CNN's Christiane Amanpour recently.
"First we decided that
the government, the administration, would be able to suspend not only
passports but also ID for people whose intention is to go to Syria."
The second step is to
encourage families concerned at the path their children appear to be
taking to contact the authorities and report their fears.
"Because we have many
cases where families do not agree with the youngster and at the moment
they are aware that the young people want to leave and therefore they
have to get in touch with us in order to have a reaction," he said.
"We have to be very,
very strict and to explain to these young people, especially the young
girls -- 13, 14 years old -- that if they are going there, some of them
think that it will be a new life, [but] in fact they are prostitutes,
they are sexual slaves.
"The young people are utilized and many of them are killed."
Fouad El Bathy has spent the past nine months trying to bring his teenage sister safely home from Syria before it is too late.
Nora, 16, was recruited and given a plane ticket to join the fight in Syria, according to French intelligence.
Fouad is convinced she
is being held against her will, and took the risky step of trying to
find her and get her back -- he was even taken captive at one point.
But when he finally tracked her down, he couldn't convince her to leave.
"I told her to come back with me but she cried and beat her head against the wall and she said I can't I can't."
Later he was told the leader of the group wanted to marry her.
Since Nora is a minor,
El Bathy's lawyer hopes that if she does make it back he can persuade
French officials to treat her as a victim not a combatant.
Like El Bathy and Bons,
the relatives of many of those caught up in the jihadists' web say they
feel powerless to protect their children and siblings.
Bons has set up an organization aimed at publicizing what has happened to some of those who have made the trip to Iraq and Syria.
She hopes that by
spreading the news through schools and social media, she can convince
others of the dangers posed by Islamist extremists -- though for her
son, it is too late.
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