The federal government is set to implement a rescue plan to bring dozens of Australian women and children back from detention camps in Syria.
The 16 women and 42 children are families of Islamic State members and have been held in al-Roj detention camp in northeast Syria near the Iraqi border.
A secret ASIO mission into Syria has cleared the way for the families to be repatriated to Australia, The Australian reported on Monday.
They have been held in detention for three and a half years following the fall of Islamic State in March 2019.
Some of the women say they were taken to the Middle East against their will.
In 2019, then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton played down the prospect of repatriation, saying some of the women had the potential “to come back here and cause a mass casualty event”.
“They’ve gone willingly and or they are as hardcore as some of the male terrorists they’ve seen in Syria and Iraq,” he told 2GB in October 2019.
The new Labor government, however, is working to return the women and children, with a spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil saying any decision on repatriation is informed by national security advice, the ABC reported on Monday.
“Given the sensitive nature of the matters involved, it would not be appropriate to comment further,” the spokesman said.
But shadow Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews has raised concerns about the plans, the ABC has reported.
“Labor needs to assure Australians that individuals who may have been radicalised pose no threat upon their return to Australia — and explain the efforts they’re going to undertake to monitor and rehabilitate these individuals,” she said.
Save the Children Australia chief executive Matt Tinkler has been campaigning for the women and children to be repatriated, and told the ABC it would be “welcome news” if they were returned.
“For more than three years, these children have been trapped in one of the worst places in the world to be a child and their situation has been growing increasingly desperate,” he said.
© AAP 2022
