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‘Heartbreaking’: The Children Australia will not bring home a Syrian detention camp
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‘Heartbreaking’: The Children Australia will not bring home a Syrian detention camp

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A drawing of ‘Rapunzel’ surrounded by blue skies and roses is how six -year -old Yara depicts life in Australia.
Yara, whose name SBS has changed, spent her entire childhood in Al-Roj Detentiekamp in northeastern Syria and never smelled flowers.
“It was heartbreaking,” says Greens Senator David Shoebridge, who received the drawing during a visit to the “High Security Desert Prison” in September.
“To think of a small six -year -old Australian girl whose some experience was a tent, a small patchwork of dusty streets … and a school that was too bad to teach her, it was really heartbreaking,” he said.
Al-Roj is the home of more than 2500 women and children. The women are often called ‘Isis Brides’, given their observed or real ties with hunters of the self -proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group.

The camp currently houses 37 Australian citizens, including 25 children.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge says that it is “absolutely in the capacity of the Commonwealth government” to bring Australian children home. Source: SBS News

Because the IS group was overthrown in 2019, Australia carried out two successful repatriation missions.

The Morrison government returned eight orphans in June 2019, while the Albanian government repatriated four women and 13 children in October 2022.
“There is an overwhelming obligation for the Australian government to keep Australian children safe,” Shoebridge told SBS.

“I would challenge someone to explain why an Australian child would not get a chance to be safe in Australia … and of course, if you bring the children home, you can’t take them home without their mothers.”

‘Lack of political will’

On Friday, six women and children returned to Australia after smuggling through Lebanon from the violent al-hole-pregnancy camp of Syria.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said that she was “seriously worried” by the news, which weeks after the Albanian government arrived, reported reports of a secret government plan to repatriate Australians from Syria.
“This is a very dangerous cohort of individuals who have associated themselves with the regime of the Barbarian Islamic State,” Ley said.

“The Albanian Labor government must come clean: they knew that this cohort returned and hid it to the Australian public, or worse, relatives of terrorists of the Islamic State return to Australia without the knowledge of the government.”

A spokesperson for the Interior denied any involvement and stated: “The Australian government offers no help and does not repatriate people in the Syrian IDP [internally displaced people] camps. “
“If one of those people finds their own way to return, our security authorities are convinced that they are prepared and will be able to act in the interest of the safety of the community.”
“Our agencies have been keeping an eye on these people for some time. We have faith in our agencies.”
Because the women and children are Australian citizens, they cannot be prevented from returning to Australia.

Shoebridge said that the Australian women with whom he spoke in Al-Roj for the last heard of the Australian authorities at the end of 2022, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) collected their passport biodata and photos.

ASIO would not comment on the current security status of the cohort.
For Chief Executive of Save the Children Australia Mat Tinkler, the latest developments simply emphasize the “lack of political will” to repatriate Australians.
“Like the recent visit by Senator Shoebridge to Syria shows, there are no real obstacles that prevent the federal government from repatriating that are still imprisoned in the Roj camp,” he said.

“There is only a lack of political will in the way.”

‘Absolutely’ possible to bring children home

The government has consistently described the security situation in Syria as “increasingly unstable” and said that it continues to advise Australians to travel there.
“Our ability to offer consular assistance to Australians in Syria is extremely limited because of the dangerous security situation,” said a spokesperson.
While he recognized the risks present, Shoebridge said that it was “absolutely in the capacity of the Commonwealth government to bring Australian children home safely”.
“I could do this [travel to al-Roj] As a senator, “said Shoebridge, who visited in his capacity as parliamentarian.

“The administration in northeastern Syria is very open to offering safe escorts and help for your visit.”

A folded, handwritten school paper shows a simple, hand -drawn world map in pencil, with the continents and grand oceans labeled by hand. Under the map, the paper contains two lists entitled "Ocean" And "Continents," which are also written by hand in pencil on the paper lined.

Due to a lack of educational resources for prisoners in the Al-Roj camp, mothers were forced to make themselves there. Source: SBS News

The northeastern part of Syria, where Al-Roj Camp is located, is de facto managed by the autonomous administration of North and East Syria (ATES) led by Syrian Kurds, which is not internationally recognized.

“The Australian government, the US government, worked very closely with those groups during the Syrian Civil War to defeat extremism,” said Shoebridge.

“These are really long -standing friends of Australia, so it’s hard to explain why our government cannot make the obvious approaches and work with the administration there to bring Australian children home.”

The American government has been inciting countries for years to repatriate their citizens as part of the final dismantling of the IS group.

Security advice increased and then removed

Shoebridge said his journey for three months of intensive planning and coordination required with non-governmental organizations, authorities in northeastern Syria, community connections and DFAT.
However, he added that “from all those engagements was by far the most difficult, our involvement in our own government was.”
On the day that his delegation crossed the border to Syria, the government changed its Smartraveller website to specifically refer to “Reporting a continuous and persistent threat in northeastern Syria”.

“We asked to get details about what the risk was. They wouldn’t give it to us,” said Shoebridge.

Asked if he believed that the government deliberately tried to prevent his visit to Al-Roj, Shoebridge said, “It is very difficult to explain.”
“It is difficult to know on which basis the Australian government has performed the security advice the day before we entered, and then we removed the same security advice the next day,” said Shoebridge.

In response to SBS questions, a DFAT spokesperson said that “all Smartraveller Travel Advisories holds accurate assessment, including regularly and carefully assessing the risks for Australians abroad to ensure that we provide accurate and up-to-date information”.

‘Growing sense of urgency’

For proponents of families and politicians there is a growing sense of urgency to repatriate Australians – especially for male children who run the risk of being admitted to Syria’s adult prison system.
That is exactly what happened to Yusuf Zahab, who was locked up without the leadership of when he was 15 years old and became emblematic for the large cohort of boys who are stuck in the prisons of northeastern Syria.
“For years we urge the Australian government to repatriate the Australian children and their mothers in camps in northeastern Syria,” Tinkler said.

“Save the children is deeply concerned about the safety of these innocent children, and the longer they stay there, the more danger they are confronted.”

Shoebridge said that the women with whom he spoke was mainly worried about their sons.
“As guys get older and 13, 14 and 15, there is a real risk that unless Australia acts quickly, who will be taken young Australian boys … [to a men’s prison] And literally disappear from sight. “
“The fact that the political risk is placed before Australian children keep safe. I just find it unconsciously.”
SBS contacted household affairs and Minister of Immigration Tony Burke with specific questions, but received no answer.
A government spokesperson said: “Our travel advice continues to advise that Australians are not traveling to Syria because of the dangerous security situation and threat of armed conflict, air strikes, terrorism, random detention and kidnapping – as it has been his journey there since these Australians.”

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