The last remaining Australian women and children linked to Islamic State (IS) have reportedly left the al-Roj detention camp in north-east Syria, heading to Damascus before an expected return to Australia, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Vision obtained by an ABC news crew in Syria showed a minivan leaving the camp, which it reported was transporting all the remaining seven women and 14 children from the camp, though this has not been officially confirmed. The group, travelling in a convoy with a Syrian government escort, is expected to book flights home to Australia in the coming days.
All are Australian citizens and possess travel documents. However, one woman is subject to a temporary exclusion order preventing her re-entry to Australia. The Australian government did not confirm reports of the group's expected departure from Syria, and it is understood no plane tickets have yet been booked. The return to Australia could take several days.
Federal Minister Tanya Plibersek stated that the group will face the same repercussions upon arrival as previous returnees. "They'll face the same consequences as the first group," she told the ABC on Friday.
The Australians are wives, widows, and children of jailed or deceased Islamic State fighters, and most have been held at the camp for over six years. Some of the women could face terror-related charges upon landing in Australia. However, many women have claimed they were coerced or tricked into entering Syria, or visited neighbouring countries for humanitarian reasons before being trafficked into IS territory. Some children were born in the camp and have never been outside it.
This marks the fifth group of Australians to leave Syrian detention camps since 2019. The Morrison and Albanese governments each conducted one government-controlled repatriation, in 2019 and 2022. Late last year, a group of women escaped the nearby al-Hawl camp, making their way to Beirut and home to Australia. Last month, four women and nine children travelled home to Australia from Damascus.
Three of those women were arrested and charged by the Australian Federal Police upon arrival in Melbourne and Sydney. They remain in custody. Two, Kawsar Ahmad and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, have been charged with slavery offences, while the other, Janai Safar, faces charges of joining a terrorist organisation and travelling to a proscribed terrorist area.
The squalid and dangerous al-Roj camp, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) but described by the US as an "incubator for radicalisation," is being steadily shuttered ahead of an expected handover to the Syrian government.
The Albanese government has maintained it is doing nothing to assist the Australians' return to their home country and warned that anyone who had committed an offence would be prosecuted to the "full extent of the law" upon return. Health Minister Mark Butler told morning television on Friday that those returning had the legal right, "as Australian citizens, to make their own way back to the Australian border." He added, "But if they've committed any offence, they'll be met at that border, as we saw a few weeks ago, with police and charged potentially with very serious offences."
The US government, which funds the camp's operation, has increased pressure on Australia, insisting that countries take back their citizens and making repeated offers to assist with repatriations.
