ICRC calls on Australia to repatriate 40 nationals in NE Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Saturday, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Australia to repatriate its citizens held in camps designated for ISIS families in northeast Syria.
Robert Mardini, the ICRC Director-General, said the “state of in-limbo cannot last longer.”
In October 2022, the Australian government repatriated four Australian women and 13 children from camps in Syria that holds the wives and children of ISIS fighters.
The Australian women and the children were held in the second-most dangerous Roj Camp south of the town of Derik (al-Malikiyah) in the far northeast Syria.
Roj is one of several detention camps in northeast Syria holds about 727 families, numbering 2.310 individuals including 1.582 children.
About 30 children and 10 women of Australian nationality are believed to remain in NE Syria’s camps, while the Australian government has not yet announced any further repatriation missions.
Mardini touched the difficult conditions the people face in the camps. “So you have a generation of children growing up in terrible conditions.”
“We bear witness to the devastating humanitarian situation where those women and children are living in terrible conditions in winter, in summer, very poor services, an extremely volatile security situation where sometimes fighting is erupting in the camp,” he noted.
Mardini added that the ICRC had been “very consistent in recommending to all states having nationals in north-east Syria to repatriate them.”
Mardini pointed out that this call would not prevent the police or security agencies from investigating individuals and taking measures after the repatriation operations.
“This is not a call for impunity for whoever is there. It needs to happen, following due process in the framework of the law,” Mardini said.
The issue of ISIS families, hail from more than 60 nationalities, constitutes an ongoing and challenging issue on the non-internationally recognized Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which repeatedly demands the concerned countries to repatriate their national.
Australia, along with UK and Canada, is one of the countries characterized by strict government covenants that restrict the repatriation operations, which may include revoking citizenship, such as what happened with the British bride of ISIS, Shamima Begum.
On April 6, Canada repatriated 14 people; four women and 10 children from northeast Syria, bringing the number of countries that have repatriated citizens from the camps this year to 10.