Australia repatriates 17 from Syria’s camps

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Australian government announced that it had repatriated four women along with 13 children from Syria’s northeast.

The repatriation marks the first of a series to bring back the Australian nationals, estimated to be around 20 women along with their 40 children who are spouses and kids of former ISIS fighters in Syria’s Kurdish-run Al-Hol and Roj Camps.

"The decision to repatriate these women and their children was informed by individual assessments following detailed work by national security agencies," Clare O'Neil, Australia’s home affairs minister, said in a statement.

The international rights groups and United Nations have called on all countries. whose nationals are left in notorious detention centers, to repatriate, as they are at risk of radicalization by the members of the terror group whose caliphate was toppled in 2019.

The camp’s population consists of diverse nationalities, including Iraqis and Europeans.

The issue of repatriation has caused public debates in numerous Western capitals, citing the risks the returnees might face to the national security of those countries.

"Australia can play a leadership role on counterterrorism through these orderly repatriations of its nationals, most of them children who never chose to live under ISIS,” the minister said.

Iraq has repatriated over 900 families so far from the camps, according to the country’s immigration authority.