Night raids and violent beatings: Australia urged to accept citizens trapped in Syria as conditions deteriorate in Roj camp | Australian Immigration and Asylum

Conditions in the north-east Syrian camp where 34 Australians were forcibly returned are deteriorating dramatically, with reports of almost nightly raids, and increasingly violent beatings, amid deepening uncertainty over their future.

The 11 women and 23 Australian children Monday forced back to Roj camp returned to find their tents – formerly collectively known in a row as Australia Street – demolished and their belongings confiscated.

Kurdish officials reportedly refused to return their tents, leaving the group scattered across the shrinking, unstable camp, along with other families.

There are no established lines of communication with the group, and their immediate future – whether another attempt will be made to reach Australia – is becoming increasingly unclear.

The group – the last Australians left in the camp after previous government-run repatriations – are the wives, widows and children of killed or captured Islamic State fighters.

They were given Australian passports and permission to leave the Roj camp.

But their efforts to reach Damascus, and from there on flights to Australia, were thwarted when Syrian government officials stopped their convoy and refused them permission to cross into government-held territory. They were forced back to Roj, in Syria’s far northeast, near the Turkish and Iraqi borders.

Sources on the ground in Syria say the camp is increasingly unstable and violent. It is expected to soon be transferred from Kurdish control into the hands of the Syrian government.

There are also fears of renewed violence amid the uncertainty of a fragile truce between the Syrian government and the Kurdish forces, still in control of the Roj camp, but who have ceded most of their territory.

‘We just want her house’

“It’s getting more dangerous, more uncertain,” a Syrian source said.

“Other countries undertake these repatriations. Australia has completely abdicated its responsibility.”

One mother said she actively avoided the news, as any mention of the plight of the Australians left 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 prioritize the rights of Australian children to be repatriated to safety.

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The government is determined not to help with the Australians’ repatriation, as it did previously with other Australians held in the same camp.

The Prime Minister said he was initially upon their return.

“I have nothing to do but think for these people,” Anthony Albanese told ABC radio.

“The government offers no support for the repatriation of these people or any support whatsoever.”

He earlier said “you make your bed, you lie in it“. When it was pointed out that most of the group were children, and that some were born in the camps, he said: “I think it’s a shame that children are caught up in this, it’s not their decision, but it’s the decision of their parents or their mother.”

The chief executive of Save the Children Australia, who has advocated on behalf of the group for years, said all political parties needed to tone down the political rhetoric and put the well-being 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 back home in Australia by now if the government had repatriated them when it had to. They lost years of their childhood languishing in tents in conditions that would shock most Australians.”

Tinkler said the government has always had the power to repatriate its citizens, as the Morrison and Albany governments did in 2019 and 2022, but that now “politics are standing in the way of real solutions for these children.”

“Children are not responsible for the actions of their parents, and their rights should not be swept aside because it is politically convenient to do so.

“Leaving them in limbo will not make the Australian community safer. In fact, national security experts say it could pose a greater long-term risk.”

‘The conditions in the camps are terrible’

Human Rights Watch said Roj camp, while remaining in the hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, is expected to be handed over to the Syrian government soon.

“Conditions there appear to have worsened in recent weeks, with women in contact with us reporting almost nightly raids and beatings of a scale and severity not previously felt.”

The Australian director of Human Rights Watch, Daniela Gavshon, said the organization had repeatedly pressed the Australian and other governments to repatriate their citizens who had been illegally and indefinitely detained in northeast Syria for nearly seven years.

“The conditions in the camps are appalling. The situation is untenable and the government must find a solution. These Australians must 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 say, the biggest danger for Australia is not accepting the return of children from the camps in north-east Syria. It leaves them there.”

The Australian government said it would seek a temporary exclusion order on one of the women understood that they wanted to return to Australia.

The Australian government has undertaken two successful repatriation missions – of eight orphans in 2019, and of four women and 13 children in 2022 – but has consistently said it has no plans to repatriate the final group. One female returnee was charged with entering a prohibited area, Raqqah province. Mariam Raad pleaded guilty and was conditionally discharged in a NSW court.

Last October, two women and four children escaped the nearby al-Hawl detention campon their way across Syria to Lebanon, where they obtained passports from the Australian embassy. They returned to Australia on a commercial flight.

In 2024, then Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil was preparing to bring a plan to repatriate the remaining Australians to cabinet for approval. But there were concerns within the government setback for 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 northeastern Syria through the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It wants the camp closed and has withdrawn funding and pressured allies to repatriate their citizens.

Islamic State “continues to seek to indoctrinate residents and to enter the detention facilities” at Roj, says the US.

The commander of US Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, said at a UN conference in September “as time goes on, these camps are hotbeds for radicalization.”