Australia won’t repatriate families from camp: Syria
Syrian officials said that a group of Australian women and children who left the camp in Syria where people allegedly linked to ISIS were stranded in the country because Australian officials did not allow them to return.
Last week, 13 women and children from four families left the Roj camp, a remote facility near the Iraqi border that houses relatives of suspected militants, for the Syrian capital on Friday.
An official at the camp said at the time that the families were expected to stay in Damascus for 72 hours and then be sent to Australia.
In response to an Associated Press inquiry about their situation, Syria’s information ministry said that after the families left the camp, the foreign ministry was informed that “the Australian government has refused to receive them.”
In the statement made by the Ministry of Information, it was stated that they were rejected from reaching Damascus International Airport.
“These families are still waiting for a solution that can only be achieved through coordination with relevant international parties.”
“We are not providing support and assistance to these people to return,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday.
The Syrian information ministry said the families, through a lawyer, were handed over their passports by an unidentified “person” while they were still in northeastern Syria, in an area under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Lebanese-Australian doctor Jamal Rifi previously told Australian media he was helping coordinate repatriation efforts.
Rifi could not be reached for comment.
An attempt to send 34 women and children back to Australia from the camp in February was turned down by Syrian authorities.
After the militant group lost control of its territory in Syria in 2019, former ISIS fighters from many countries were held, along with their wives and children, in a network of camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria.
Although defeated, the group still has sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq.
Australian governments have twice repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps.
Other Australians also returned without government assistance.
