A group of Australian women and children linked to the extremist group Islamic State arrived home on Thursday after years in a camp in Syria, with some facing arrest at the airport, Australian media reported.
The Australian government said on Wednesday that four women and nine children who had been detained in northeast Syria planned to return to Australia, but would receive no government assistance.
One woman and her child arrived in Sydney on Thursday evening via Doha, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Police boarded the plane and took the woman into custody, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. A second group touched down in Melbourne.
Local media said there was a heavy police presence at both airports in anticipation of their arrival.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s travel plans.
Australian Federal Police said earlier that some in the group could be arrested and charged on arrival, while others might remain under investigation. The children are expected to enter community reintegration and support programmes.
Some Australian women travelled to Syria between 2012 and 2016 to join their husbands, who had allegedly become ISIS members.
Following ISIS’s territorial defeat in 2019, many relatives of suspected fighters were detained in camps, including al-Roj in the northeast of the country where the latest Australian returnees were held, according to the ABC.
In January, the United States began moving detained ISIS members out of Syria after the collapse of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which had been guarding around a dozen facilities holding fighters and affiliated civilians, including foreigners.
The Australian government repatriated four women and 13 children from Syrian camps in 2022.
About 21 Australians remain in al-Roj, the ABC reported.
(Reuters)
