Australian IS families returns from Syrian camp

Web Desk

29th Oct, 2022. 09:15 pm
Share
- Listen
- Font size
  - Small
  - Medium
  - Large
- Dark Mode
- Save
- Print

Articles

Approximately 60 Australians will be sent home, according to officials.
Thousands of individuals who joined IS and the families of those who died have been detained in Syrian detention facilities.
The UN issued a warning earlier this year that the circumstances in the camps amounted to torture for people residing there.

Family members of IS fighters, including four women and thirteen children, have been returned to Australia.

After spending years in Syrian jail facilities, the gang finally arrived on Saturday.

Approximately 60 Australians will be sent home, according to officials.

Since IS was deemed territorially defeated in Syria and Iraq in March 2019, thousands of individuals who joined IS and the families of those who died have been detained in Syrian detention facilities.

Since then, Australian women and children who were the spouses, sons, or daughters of IS members who had died or been imprisoned have resided in the al-Hol and Roj detention facilities in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.

The UN issued a warning earlier this year that the circumstances in the camps amounted to torture for people residing there.

Australian citizens have been the focus of a contentious debate, with the conservative opposition in parliament claiming they may be a threat to national security.

But Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the government had weighed a “range of security, community and welfare factors” before approving the repatriations.

“The decision to repatriate these women and their children was informed by individual assessments following detailed work by national security agencies,” she said in a statement.

According to the statement, it comes after comparable repatriations by the US, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, and Canada.

When eight children and grandkids of two deceased Islamic State combatants were rescued in 2019, it was during Scott Morrison’s coalition administration that Australia last evacuated nationals from a Syrian camp.

Australian IS families returns from Syrian camp

Web Desk

Articles