Conditions in the north-eastern Syrian camp to where 34 Australians have been forcibly returned are deteriorating dramatically, with reports of near-nightly raids, and increasingly violent beatings, amid worsening uncertainty over their futures.
The 11 women and 23 Australian children forced back to Roj camp on Monday returned to find their tents – formerly huddled collectively in a row known as Australia Street – demolished and their possessions seized.
Kurdish officials have reportedly refused to return their tents, so the group has been scattered across the shrinking, unstable camp, billetted with other families.
There are no established lines of communications with the group, and their immediate future – whether another attempt will be made to reach Australia – is increasingly unclear.
The group – the last Australians left in the camp after previous government-run repatriations – are the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters.
They have been given Australians passports and permission to leave Roj camp.
But their efforts to reach Damascus, and from there, flights to Australia, were thwarted when Syrian government officials stopped their convoy, refusing them permission to cross into government-controlled territory. They were forced back to Roj, in Syria’s far north-east, near to the Turkish and Iraqi borders.
Sources on the ground in Syria say the camp is increasingly unstable and violent. It is expected to be transferred from Kurdish control into the hands of the Syrian government soon.
There are fears, too, for renewed violence amid the uncertainty of a fragile ceasefire between the Syrian government and the Kurdish forces, still in control of Roj camp for now, but who have ceded most of their territory.
‘We just want her home’
“It’s getting more dangerous, more uncertain,” a Syrian source said.
“Other countries are undertaking these repatriations. Australia has completely abdicated its responsibility.”
One mother told the Guardian said she had been actively avoiding the news, as any mention of the fate of the Australians who remained stranded in Syria was unbearable.
“It’s been almost seven years, we just want her home,” she said.
In Australia, human rights groups have urged Australia’s politicians to prioritise the rights of the Australian children to be repatriated to safety.
The government has been resolute that it is not assisting with the Australians’ repatriation, as it had previously with other Australians detained in the same camp.
The prime minister said he was inimical to their return.
“I have nothing but contempt for these people,” Anthony Albanese told ABC radio.
“The government is providing no support for the repatriation of these people or any support whatsoever.”
He had earlier said “you make your bed, you lie in it”. When it was pointed out the majority of the group were children, and that some had been born in the camps, he said: “I think it’s unfortunate that children are caught up in this, that’s not their decision, but it’s the decision of their parents or their mother.”
The chief executive of Save the Children Australia, which has advocated on behalf of the group over years, said all political parties should dial down the political rhetoric and put the wellbeing of vulnerable Australian children first.
“This is a group of innocent Australian children who deserve safety and protection, as every child does. That has largely been lost from the debate in recent days,” Mat Tinkler said.
“Every parent knows that babies and toddlers don’t make beds. The reality is that some of these children were born in the displacement camps, and many were toddlers when they were first taken there.
“These children would be sleeping in warm, comfortable beds at home in Australia by now if the government had repatriated them when it should have. They have lost years of their childhoods languishing in tents, in conditions that would shock most Australians.”
Tinkler said the government had always had the power to repatriate its citizens, as both the Morrison and Albanese governments had done, in 2019 and 2022, but that now, “politics is getting in the way of real solutions for these children”.
“Children are not responsible for the actions of their parents, and their rights must not be swept aside because it is politically convenient to do so.
“Leaving them in limbo will not make the Australian community any safer. In fact, national security experts say it may present a greater long-term risk.”
‘The conditions in the camps are dire’
Human Rights Watch said that Roj camp, while it remains in the hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Force, was expected to be handed over to the Syrian government soon.
“Conditions there seem to have deteriorated in the last weeks, with women we are in touch with reporting near nightly raids and beatings of a scale and severity not previously felt.”
Australia Director of Human Rights Watch Daniela Gavshon said the organisation had repeatedly pressed the Australian and other governments to repatriate their citizens who had been unlawfully and indefinitely detained in northeast Syria for almost seven years.
“The conditions in the camps are dire. The situation is untenable and the government needs to find a solution. These Australians should be brought back to Australia for rehabilitation, reintegration, and prosecution of adults where warranted.”
Gavshon said Australia was well-equipped to reintegrate the women and children from the camps, with services to support those who had experienced displacement, violence, family separation and interrupted schooling.
“For years now, experts have been saying, the greatest danger for Australia is not accepting the return of children from the camps in northeast Syria. It’s leaving them there.”
The Australian government has said it will seek to impose a temporary exclusion order on one of the women understood to be seeking to return to Australia.
The Australian government undertook two successful repatriation missions – of eight orphaned children in 2019, and of four women and 13 children in 2022 – but said consistently it had no plan to repatriate the final group. One returned woman was charged with entering a proscribed area, Raqqah province. Mariam Raad pleaded guilty and was discharged conditionally in a NSW court.
Last October, two women and four children escaped nearby al-Hawl detention camp, making their way across Syria to Lebanon, where they were given passports at the Australian embassy. They returned to Australia on a commercial flight.
In 2024, Clare O’Neil, then home affairs minister, was preparing to bring a plan to repatriate the remaining Australians to cabinet for approval. But there were concerns within government over backlash to any repatriation from community groups in electorally critical marginal seats in western Sydney, and the plan was abandoned.
The US funds the bulk of security operations across north-east Syria through the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It wants the camp closed and has withdrawn funding and pushed allies to repatriate their citizens.
Islamic State “continues to seek to indoctrinate residents and to infiltrate the detention facilities” at Roj, the US says.
The commander of US Central Command, Adm Brad Cooper, told a UN conference in September “as time goes on, these camps are incubators for radicalisation”.