Australia begins repatriating women, children of ISIS/Daesh terrorists from Syria

ANKARA (AA) – Australia has begun the repatriation of its citizens held in a detention camp in northeast Syria, local media said on Friday.

The first group of four Australian women and 13 children were evacuated from the Roj detention camp and shifted to the Iraqi border before boarding a plane home, ABC News reported.

Around 60 women and children were trapped and detained in al-Hol and Roj camps since the defeat of the ISIS/Daesh terrorist group in March 2019.

Most of these women were sent to Syria at a young age and married Australian terrorists there.

Since 2019, over 25 countries have repatriated their citizens from Syrian detention camps.

"Given the sensitive nature of the matters involved, it would be inappropriate to comment further," the broadcaster quoted Clare O'Neil, a spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister, as saying.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to comment publicly on the issue, saying he will follow the advice of his national security agency.

"We will continue to act on national security advice, which is what we have done up to this point and what the former government did as well. So we will take that national security adviser and we will always act in a way that keeps Australians safe and that is our objective and that is what we'll do," he told reporters.

Responding to a question regarding the previous Scott Morrison government's decision to not rescue these citizens from Syria, Albanese said, "that's actually not right."

"The former government did bring back some children from that area," he added.

* Writing by Islamuddin Sajid​​​​​​​