Syrian authorities turned back a group of Australian women and children on Monday after the group left the Roj camp in Syria in an attempt to return to Australia, camp officials said. The group had departed the remote camp near the border with Iraq but returned after contact from Damascus, according to the officials, who said it was not clear whether the families would be able to complete travel.
The 34 women and children came from 11 families and were supposed to travel from Roj camp to Damascus before flying to Australia. Rashid Omar, an administrator at the camp, said families were contacted about an hour after leaving and were told that the procedures for their departure were not complete and they would not be able to travel, prompting the group to return to the camp.
Hakmiyeh Ibrahim, the camp director, said the planned repatriations were organized by family members of the returnees rather than directly by Australian authorities. Australian officials could not be reached for comment at the time of the report, the camp officials said in describing the effort from the camp side.
The Roj camp houses about 2,200 people from around 50 nationalities, mostly women and children, who have supposed links to Islamic State militants. Most residents are not technically prisoners and have not been accused of a crime, but they have been, in effect, detained in the heavily guarded camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The fate of the camp system—especially Roj and the larger al-Hol camp—has been a subject of debate for years. Human rights groups have cited poor living conditions and pervasive violence in the camps, while many countries have been reluctant to take back citizens detained there, according to the report.
Monday’s attempted repatriation, if completed, would have been the first this year. Ibrahim said 16 families were repatriated last year, including German, British and French nationals, and that in 2022, three Australian families were repatriated.
The report also noted broader developments in northeast Syria involving Islamic State detainees and camp control. Government forces took control of al-Hol camp last month amid fighting with the SDF that led to state forces seizing most of the territory in the region previously controlled by Kurdish forces. The U.N. refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of al-Hol camp have left and that the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Separately, the report said thousands of accused Islamic State militants held in detention centers in northeastern Syria were transferred to Iraq by the U.S. military to stand trial there.