The n wives and children of Islamic State killers have pleaded to be allowed back into the country after years of being locked in a Syrian detention camp.
A group of 12 n women and 22 children, aged between five and 56, have been kept in the al-Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for up to four years.
They claim they are trapped in a ‘living hell’ with no sign of respite after the fall of the Islamic terror organisation left them stranded.
Their husbands have all either been killed or jailed in the wake of ISIS’s defeat.
Eight n children were repatriated by the Morrison Government in 2019, and 13 more and four mothers were allowed home by Anthony Albanese in October 2022.
But those left behind see no hope of a return, and insist the uncertainty is torture.
‘We were told we were all going home,’ said one of two n women in the camp who spoke to the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘But over the last two years, we haven’t been given any explanation as to why we were left behind when the others are now healing and moving on with life.
‘This is just a form of indefinite torture.’
The camp, which is near the Iraqi border, consists of dozens of tents set up on a field of dirt and gravel, enclosed by a metal fence.
Al-Roj is home to around 2,600 detainees from 55 countries, many of them ISIS brides and their children. The camp is guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and conditions are abysmal.
Fresh food and clean water are hard to come by and the camp’s location in the Syrian desert brings with it both scorching hot and freezing cold temperatures.
‘We are left in the dark and brushed under the carpet like we aren’t living, breathing human beings,’ one of the women told the publication, communicating through retired lawyer Robert van Aalst.
She added that everyone in the detention camp was sick and securing medication was a daily struggle.
Boys as young as 10 have reportedly been separated from their mothers and siblings and taken to adult detention facilities in other camps.
One of the n women detained said her son bites his fingernails until they bleed and has night terrors out of fear of being removed from his family.
Beatings and gunshots are also reportedly common occurrences.
The ISIS brides say they prefer to educate their children themselves, out of fear the school in the al-Roj camp could radicalise them.
‘Our children want to go to school, make friends and go to a park that’s not caged in by a fence and soldiers,’ one woman said.
In November last year, the Federal Court dismissed an application from charity Save The Children (STCA) for the n government to repatriate the women and children still detained.
The charity appealed against the decision which was knocked back again by the Federal Court in June this year.
The court found the n government did not have control over the detention of the n women and children but conceded if the government did want to repatriate the detainees, it would be ‘a relatively straightforward exercise’.
The STCA has now been granted special leave to appeal the matter to the High Court, with oral submissions to be heard on September 23.
The charity’s CEO Mat Tinkler said the ISIS brides and children were ‘living in sweltering desert heat without reliable electricity or access to suitable healthcare or education’.
‘Their situation is getting worse by the day,’ he said in a statement.
‘n citizenship must mean something, and we urge the Federal Government to end their suffering by immediately repatriating these families back home to safety in . This would stop this legal action in its tracks.
‘These are innocent n kids who have experienced immense trauma and suffering but are left to languish in desert camps, where they are rapidly losing hope.
‘What I find difficult to comprehend is that the n Government could end their suffering right now by bringing them home and providing the chance for a real life, but our political leaders are choosing not to act.
‘Just last month, the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Finland repatriated women and children from the camps, showing once again that repatriations are possible.
‘Despite the ruling, we appeal to the Government to end this relentless limbo and finish what they started almost two years ago, by repatriating the remaining children and their mothers before it is too late.’
The n government in late 2022 announced plans to bring home 16 women and 42 children from the camp, but no further progress on the potential repatriation has been made.
Many of the children were born in Syria and have never seen , while their mothers say they were forced, tricked or coerced into marrying ISIS fighters.
The Home Affairs department said it ‘remained concerned about the remaining n-linked women and children in the internally displaced persons camps’.
The department added assistance from the government was ‘severely limited due to the extremely dangerous security situation and because we do not have an embassy or consulate in Syria’.