Australian ISIS brides and children are out of Syrian camp and on their way home
A large group of Australian Islamic State (ISIS) brides and their children are leaving the Syrian camp late on Monday and returning to Australia for the capital Damascus.
While the Australian government insisted it had done nothing to facilitate their departure, Syrian officials said they would go to Beirut and from there to Australia.
Kurdish local authorities controlling the camp announced late Monday that 11 Australian families, including 34 women and children, had left the camp for the Syrian capital. An earlier statement said 24 Australians had left.
A local journalist working for this imprint said some Australians remained in the camp, but it was unclear how many remained behind on Monday night. In the video shot by the journalist, some children can be seen saying goodbye to the adults in the group.
The families have been living in concentration camps in northeastern Syria since March 2019, when the so-called Islamic caliphate fell. They were approaching their seventh anniversary in the camps.
The director of the camp, Hakamia Ibrahim, confirmed that the Australians will move from Damascus to Beirut, where they will apply to the Australian embassy and receive passports to their country.
Video taken during the departure of the women and children shows three Australian men coordinating and organizing the women and children in three vans. Guards bearing the insignia of the Kurdish forces in the camp were facilitating the exit and confirming that this was done with the approval of local authorities.
However, it is not clear who organized this.
The Albanian government denied any involvement. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s spokesman said in a statement that the Australian government “has not and will not send people back from Syria”.
However, the government had previously taken the view that if any citizen went to an Australian embassy, they were legally obliged to issue a passport.
“Our security agencies have been and continue to monitor the situation in Syria to ensure they are prepared for Australians wishing to return to Australia,” the spokesman said.
“People in this group need to know that if they have committed a crime and return to Australia they will be met with the full force of the law. The safety of Australians and the protection of Australia’s national interests remains a top priority.”
The charity Save The Children, which has a deep interest in the welfare of Australians, also denied any involvement in the operation.
Chief executive Mat Tinkler said late on Monday: “Save the Children does not fund or conduct repatriations and we would never intend to play such a role.
“We did not intervene in the removal of Australians from camps in north-east Syria. These reports underscore what national security experts have repeatedly said: unmanaged returns of Australian citizens will inevitably occur absent Federal Government action to repatriate them.”
Both the Coalition and Labor-led governments have refused to repatriate most of the families, saying it is too dangerous to send Australian public servants to the region.
The women and children are the remains of dozens of people who traveled to Syria and Iraq during the Islamic State’s rule. They were captured after the defeat of the so-called caliphate.
Many people have since been repatriated. In 2019, the Morrison government brought back eight orphans and one newborn.
Then, in October 2022 – early in Anthony Albanese’s first term – four Australian women and their 13 children were brought back to Sydney under former home secretary Clare O’Neil, prompting a minor backlash.
None were returned to Victoria. Asked about this in 2022, former Home Office secretary Mike Pezzullo told an estimates committee: “If a state government chooses to say, ‘We don’t want to continue,’ then I would think the Commonwealth would take that quite seriously… they would give us the authority to continue or otherwise.”
It is therefore likely that most of the people returning in this group will go to Victoria.
In September last year, two women and four children escaped from a different camp, Al Hawl, after paying money to people smugglers and headed for Australia via Lebanon. They were also Victorian.
Ibrahim, the camp director, said more than 2,000 wives and children of former ISIS fighters from 40 different nationalities were still held in the camp after the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria in March 2019.
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Michael Bachelard is The Age’s senior writer and former deputy editor and research editor. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, written two books and won several awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect with: X or email.
