Australian ISIS brides and children are out of Syrian camp and on their way home
Updated ,first published
A large group of Australian Islamic State (ISIS) brides and their children left the Syrian camp late on Monday to return to Australia, but were turned back about 50 kilometers down the road and sent back to where they started.
It is the latest disappointment for 34 Australian women and children who spent almost seven years in Syrian camps as the Australian government continues to refuse to repatriate them through official channels.
A camp official told this outlet that their promised departure to Damascus, the Syrian capital, then to Beirut and then to Australia has been paused for an indefinite period of time, possibly hours, possibly days.
It is unclear why, but the official suggested the three Australian men accompanying the women and children did not organize the correct permit among the groups governing the area.
“It is not cancelled, it has been postponed for a while,” the official insisted.
The Australian government said it did nothing to facilitate the group’s departure, while Syrian officials said the plan was to travel from Damascus to Beirut and then to Australia, where everyone is a citizen.
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.
One woman told the journalist that she could not return with the others. She was only a permanent resident, although her ex-husband was Australian and their two children were citizens. He said that as a Lebanese citizen, he was unable to obtain the documents needed to travel.
“Three years ago they promised to take me to Lebanon and get my papers. Now who will do the papers?” the woman said in Arabic.
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.
Hakamia Ibrahim, the camp’s director, confirmed that the Australians planned to move from Damascus to Beirut, where they would apply to the Australian embassy and obtain passports to return home.
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”.
The government had previously taken the position that if any citizen went to an Australian embassy, the government was legally required to issue him 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 returns 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 send them back.”
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. Morrison government in 2019 brought back eight orphans and a newborn baby.
Then, in October 2022, early in Anthony Albanese’s first term, four Australian women and their 13 children brought back Former home affairs minister Clare O’Neil’s trip to Sydney sparked little reaction.
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.” In 2022, the Labor government faced an election.
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.
