26 Australians in NE Syria call on government to be repatriated
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Australian women and children held in Roj camp, northeast Syria, for Islamic State (ISIS) family members launched On Monday a legal action against the Department of Home Affairs, to compel the government to repatriate them.
The group comprises 26 Australians, including nine women and 17 children.
Roj is one of several detention camps in northeast Syria that house thousands of people, including many foreign nationals, since the SDF and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS declared the territorial defeat of the terror group in March 2019.
It currently houses 806 families, including 2,800 individuals of Arabs and foreigners, mostly women and children of ISIS members who hail from 62 countries, according to a previous report published by North Press.
Save the Children, NGO, and a team of lawyers filed a writ in the Federal Court arguing the ongoing detention of the group was unlawful, and that the Australian government can bring them home.
“People are dying in these camps on a regular basis,” Mat Tinkler, the chief executive of Save the Children, which is acting as litigation guardian in the case, said.
Lawyers representing the group argued that the women were coerced or tricked into travelling to Syria.
They also stressed that those in the camp are facing horrific living conditions.
The Department of Home Affairs and Minister Clare O’Neil were contacted for comment, but they did not.
ISIS lost its final stronghold in Syria in March 2019. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the support of the US-led Global Coalition, defeated ISIS after fierce battles in the town of Baghouz in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, bringing an end to the ISIS so-called caliphate.
After Baghouz, thousands of ISIS fighters were transferred to prisons, while their families were transferred to Hawl and Roj camps in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES)-held areas.