Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese has announced that his government will not repatriate Australian women and children from Syria who have been identified as relatives of suspected ISIS fighters.
Speaking with a news agency, Albanese said, “We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation.”
His remarks follow after a total of 34 women and children holding Australian citizenship were released yesterday from the Kurdish-controlled Roj detention camp in northern Syria, a detention camp housing ISIS militants and their families with the aim of returning to Australia via the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The Australians, who are said to be relatives of ISIS fighters, were later returned to the camp due to what was described as “technical reasons.”
The camp’s Director Hakmiyeh Ibrahim told a news agency that the repatriations were organized by family members of the returnees, who had traveled from Australia to accompany them. It was not clear if or when they would be able to re-attempt the journey.
Albanese said that while it is “unfortunate” that children have been affected, Australia is “not providing any support.”
“As my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it. We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life.”
Anthony Albanese
A Spokesperson for Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke also warned that those who return to Australia from Syria will face the law if they have committed crimes.
The Spokesperson said the country “is not and will not repatriate people from Syria.”
The Spokesperson asserted that Australia’s security agencies have been monitoring, and continue to monitor, the situation in Syria to ensure they are prepared for any Australians seeking to return to Australia.
“People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia, they will be met with the full force of the law.”
Spokesperson for Australian Minister for Home Affairs
Pressure has been mounting on Australia, the US, the UK and other countries to repatriate thousands of citizens, most of them women and children, who have been trapped in detention camps in Syria since the fall of the Caliphate more than five years ago.
Amnesty International and other NGOS have warned of widespread and systematic human rights abuses in the camps, where they say detainees, many of whom were forcibly trafficked to ISIS or born into the Caliphate, are subjected to torture, gender-based violence, forced disappearance and other atrocities.
Save the Children has long advocated on behalf of Australian citizens in Syrian detention, and in 2023 took the federal government to court to compel officials to bring them home and lost.
The Federal Court ruled against Save the Children, saying the Australian government did not control their detention in Syria.
Australia Facing More Resistance Following Bondi Beach Shooting
Meanwhile, Rodger Shanahan, a Middle East Security Analyst, opined that the Australian government is facing more resistance to the return of its citizens from Syria following the deadly Bondi Beach attack in December, in which 15 people were killed, at a Jewish festival in Sydney.
Speaking to a news agency, Shanahan stated, “I think that there’s a concern in the Australian population that people might appear to have done away with their radical views, but they still retain them deep down.”
Some countries have begun the legally and politically fraught process of repatriating their citizens, but progress has been slow as many governments have been reluctant to act due to national security concerns and domestic opposition.
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