(Staff article from the ABC NEWS Australia on 28 October 2022.)
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| Will they be allowed to bring their AK-47s. |
France last week removed 40 women and 15 children
from the camps, joining more than 25 countries that had repatriated their
citizens since the fall of the IS in early 2019.
The Australian government, which was involved in the extraction, confirmed the group's return. Those removed were assessed by Australian officials as being the most vulnerable of the 60 Australian women and children held in Roj.
Australian
authorities have been on the ground in Syria, planning the removals with the
assistance of the Kurdish administration. DNA samples were taken from the women
and children on October 15 to prove the children are Australian citizens.
"Given the
sensitive nature of the matters involved, it would be inappropriate to comment
further," a spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil told the
ABC. The remaining Australians in Roj are expected to be removed from Syria in
two groups — likely in the next few months.
Most of the
children were born in Syria and Iraq under IS. Their return marks the first
time they will be meeting their extended families. ABC's Four Corners reported
on the desperate situation of the women and children in 2019. At the time, one
of the women pleaded to be repatriated and said they did not choose to travel
to Syria.
"We didn't
know where we were, they stripped us of our phones and passports," she
said. A 22-year-old woman was taken to Syria when she was 15 years old; six
months later she was married to a fellow Australian and soon after fell pregnant
with their first child. By the time she was 19, she had given birth to four
children.
Her 12-year-old
sister, was taken to Syria when she was just five years old. Plagued with
illness, the young girl collapsed in the camp late last year and required
urgent medical treatment. "I want to go back home and live a normal life
with my sisters and my mum," the younger sister said at the time.
Another mother
and her children are considered vulnerable partly because of her 12-year-old
son. His age means he is at risk of soon being moved to an adult prison. "He's
growing up and my fears for my son is to be taken away from me and that's also
his fear. I can't imagine that happening to us," she told the ABC earlier
this year.
Families still languishing in detention camps
More than 60
Australian women and children who lived under IS have been held against their
wills in the al-Hol and Roj camps since the militant group's defeat in March
2019. Most of the Australian Muslims held in the camps are children who have
spent the majority of their lives in detention camps. One of the mothers told
the ABC in 2019 they were tricked into entering the country by male relatives.
Islamic State brides returning to Australia
More than 20
countries removed their women and children from the dusty, violent and
disease-ridden camps years ago. Despite that, the then-Morrison government was
slow to act, stating it would "not risk one Australian life" to
rescue the families.
Hundreds of
children have died from malnutrition, disease and exposure since being taken to
the Syrian camps in early 2019. It was only after the election of the left-wing
Labor government this year that Canberra finally moved to execute the rescue
mission.
It was unclear
what restrictions, if any, they would be under when they return to Australia.
It is possible some of the women would be charged by federal police with
entering Syria unlawfully. The Australian government has made no comment about
its plans for a group of Australian men who lived under IS and remain in a
prison in north-eastern Syria.
An Australian
teenager held in an adult prison died early this year after he was injured in
an attack on Guweiran prison by IS militants. Yusuf Zahab sent voice messages
to his family before he died begging for help, telling relatives he "might
die at any time" as the fighting between IS militants and Kurdish forces
intensified. Yusuf had been taken to Syria by his parents in 2015, when he was
11.
Return of Islamic State brides to Australia causes
fear
Return of
Islamic State brides to Australia causes fear for those who escaped the
brutality: Mohamed Ibrahim can barely bring himself to recall his run-in with
so-called Islamic State fighters.
With tears in
his eyes, the husband and father-of-three spoke about the eight militants who
stopped his bus in Syria in late 2017 after living under IS rule for years,
pressing a rifle to his cheek.
"I started
to sweat. My heart was pounding," Mr Ibrahim said. "I thought that
the men that were down on the road, they were so young, they were maybe 16 years
old. They were not adults. So, if they were told to shoot, they would shoot
me."
The thought of
bringing IS-linked Australian women and 44 children back from a detention camp,
called Roj, in the north of Syria, terrifies the former ambulance driver. The
first group of four women and 13 children were taken from the camp on Thursday
afternoon and have boarded a plane home.
His wife Maisaa Mhanna said the brutality of IS had
been hard for them to escape. "One woman didn't want to wear the complete
chador covering [an Islamic clothing that covers the entire face leaving only
the eyes exposed] and they shaved her head right in front of us, they said next
time she would be slaughtered," she said. The couple and their three
children fled Syria in 2019 and made it to Sydney via Lebanon last year.
The IS brides, who are the widows or wives of dead and imprisoned militants, had been meeting with government agencies inside the Roj camp ahead of their repatriation flight, according to a source close to the families. The Albanese government recently overturned a Coalition decision refusing repatriation to the families.
For Mr Ibrahim
it brings back moments he'd rather forget. "Our house was destroyed, in
war there is no life. There's no peace. There was only fear. Your spirit is
tired," he said. The Roj camp, on the border with Iraq, has about 60,000
residents according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, who oversee the running of
the tent city.
The Syrian
Democratic Forces are a largely Kurdish military backed by the United States,
which were formed during the Syrian civil war in opposition to both IS and the
Syrian forces under leader Bashar al-Assad.
The camp is seen
as a stepping stone for people looking to be repatriated to their countries of
origin after being displaced or joining IS. Many of the Australian women in the
camp have been in Syria since 2014, and were moved between refugee areas since
the attempted caliphate fell in 2019.
It's a lengthy
period, which the Ibrahim family says leaves scars. "They need to leave
those thoughts of death behind. Teach their children about what is right. They
need to put them in school, so they can learn, not just an education but to
learn the path of good and not the path of killing," Mr Ibrahim said.
"There is
fear for the community as well," Ms Mhanna said. "Once they find out
that that child's parents are from Daesh [the Arabic word used to describe IS],
there's a fear for the people here."
Mr Ibrahim's
sister Mira has provided significant support for her brother since he arrived,
and helps others struggling with the psychological toll of the Syrian conflict.
She said the prospect of the ISIS women returning had split her community.
"To be
honest, it's very complicated situation. I wouldn't exactly answer to yes or
no," she said. "I feel sorry for them, for the women ... no one can
guarantee what's going to happen after. So, I know we need to give them a
chance. But at the same time, there is no guarantee [of our safety]."
Control orders 'like bail'
One thing
providing comfort to those hesitant over the repatriation is a suite of strict
control orders the women will have to live under. Mark Nolan, from the Centre
of Law and Justice, said the orders, overseen by the Australian Federal Police,
would be "like bail" for them.
"The women
have agreed to control orders," Professor Nolan said. "This could
mean as much as a tracking device, or routine monitoring like a bail situation,
and it could mean a stay on their travel, and their use of social media."
Professor Nolan
said any breach of these control orders could see the women jailed for up to
five years. Any other charges, like one on entering and remaining in a declared
zone would be at the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sally
Downing, who would need permission to prosecute from the federal
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
Kim Rubinstein,
a University of Canberra citizenship expert, said it would be a matter of
proving who the parents of the children are to establish citizenship by
descent. "There are no character requirements on a child it is just an
application, but once they turn 18, the government can make a decision on their
character," Professor Rubinstein said.
"I think
there are some cases where we've seen the government starting to question
whether the actual Australian father is in fact, biologically the father of
that child." The women have also recently been taken for DNA testing.
Women as victims and perpetrators
Aid organisation
Save the Children Australia said the conditions in the Roj camp were leaving
the children vulnerable to serious injury and death. "Australians would be
shocked to see the conditions Australian children have been languishing in for
the past three years," charity CEO Mat Tinkler said.
"They are
living in uninsulated tents, exposed to the freezing cold winters and scorching
hot summers, with inadequate access to nourishing food, and suffering from
untreated wounds and poor mental health."
In a joint
statement Australian charities have decried the treatment of the women and said
the government must recognise those "trafficked from Australia and
forcibly married in Syria". Postdoctoral research fellow at Canberra's
Charles Sturt University campus, Kiriloi Ingram said that attitude of
victimhood can be a dangerous one.
Dr Ingram, who
has studied the radicalisation of western women by IS, said that by becoming
mothers, the women were fulfilling a fundamental pillar of the group's mission.
She said it remained to be seen whether they had wilfully joined the group.
The women have
stood by their view that were not aware of the situation they were involved in
when arriving in Syria. "If these women did actively go and join Islamic
State on their own accord, then they were contributing, and they were
supporting a terrorist group Islamic State," Dr Ingram said.
"We need to
be conscious of the message that [their return] is sending to genuine victims
of the group, if we're just going to bring these women who did join, but that's
a generalisation, we have to treat it on a case by case basis."
A change in government response
In a statement,
Foreign Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil said: "The Albanese government's
overriding priority is the protection of Australians and Australia's national
interests, informed by national security advice."
In 2019, the
Coalition government repatriated eight children and grandchildren of dead IS
militants. Germany has since repatriated
more than 90 of its citizens, including prosecuting one woman with aiding and
abetting genocide for the enslavement and abuse of a Yazidi woman.
France has
returned 86 and the United States has 27 and charged 10 with terrorism-related
offences. Kazakhstan has returned more than 600 of its nationals, according to
the United Nations.