A new push to bring home Australian women and children held in Kurdish-controlled Syria has been given added urgency following , say family members and a children’s rights group.
The 42 Australian citizens are detained in camps in a north-eastern pocket of Syria controlled by US-backed Kurdish forces. This region was not taken by the rebel forces that captured the capital, Damascus.
The future of the Kurdish-controlled region, however, is uncertain with the Islamist rebels’ intentions there unknown, while a Turkish-backed Syrian militia is reportedly fighting to take control of parts of the region.
Türkiye has long attacked Syria’s Kurdish forces with airstrikes, claiming they’re aligned with a Turkish-Kurdish independence movement.
Kamalle Dabboussy, whose daughter and grandchildren were repatriated from Syria in 2022, says the remaining Australian women and children there are “terrified”.
“They are scared for their lives — the fear is palpable,” he says.
Dabboussy says the women “report a reduction in the number of guards” at their al-Roj detention camp, where it’s believed the guards are being redeployed to reinforce Kurdish defences elsewhere.
CEO of Save the Children Australia, Mat Tinkler, says he’s “deeply concerned” about their deteriorating security situation.
“For years we have been urging the Australian government to act before it’s too late,” he said.
“We urge the Australian government to arrange for the group’s immediate repatriation before the situation becomes even more volatile.”
Born in Australia, Mohammad was two years old when he was taken by his family to Syria. Living in a camp for families of IS group fighters, he’s at risk of being separated from his mother and younger brothers as he approaches puberty. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
Sources close to the families say the Australian government has intervened to secure the relative safety of two Australian children by requesting they stay under their mothers’ care in the camp.
The two boys are both 12 years old or over and are at risk of being moved into men’s jails.
Human Rights Watch has documented that boys are routinely taken to “rehabilitation centres” or adult prisons once they become teenagers.
Dabboussy says with fewer Kurdish guards at the camp, the risk of the boys being taken away is greater.
In February, , Mohammad, in the al-Roj camp.
His mother, Zahra Ahmad, shared her fears of losing her sons at the time.
“If they take them away from me, I might never see them again,” she told Dateline.
“I can’t have that happen to my kids.
“They are innocent. They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe they should be punished for something they don’t even have anything to do with.”
Abraham Abbas is deeply worried about his 13 family members in the camp in north-eastern Syria. Source: SBS / Ben Partridge
Zahra Ahmad’s uncle in Melbourne, Abraham Abbas, is wracked with concern for his 13 family members in the camp
He says his “main concern would be the rebels taking control of the camp.”
“We’re thinking about them day and night, and especially the children. Until they’re safe, I don’t think we’ll be able to rest.”
“I’d like the Australian government to… repatriate them as soon as possible,” he says.
Originally from suburban Melbourne, the circumstances of how Zahra Ahmad’s extended family came to be in Syria are contested.
Some male members of her family reportedly joined the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group, but Zahra maintains the women had no choice but to follow.
“I didn’t make this bed,” she said.
When by US-backed Kurdish forces, surviving women and children were detained in camps while men and teenage boys were sent to prisons.
In October 2022, the Albanese government from al-Roj camp.
But 14 Australian women and 28 children were left in Syria.
In 2023, Save the Children Australia took the Australian government to the Federal Court to compel them to repatriate the remaining Australians but lost the case.
At a Monday press conference, SBS News asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese if there were efforts to get the remaining Australian children out.
He said he’d been “briefed” on Syria, but that at “this stage, there’s no change to the assessment that’s been made there.”
The governing Kurdish forces have long called for countries such as Australia to repatriate its citizens, arguing that guarding foreigners diverts their forces away from other needs.
SBS has also counted 13 Australian men detained in north-eastern Syria, bringing the total number of known Australians held in the region to 55.
Now 21, he was separated from his mother at the age of 15 and imprisoned as an unaccompanied minor alongside adult IS group fighters. His situation is understood to remain unchanged.
Zahab, who is originally from the Sydney suburb of Bankstown, says and fears he’ll die in prison.
Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin, a former UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, previously reported that there is an undercount of people arbitrarily detained in north-eastern Syria, where their confinement conditions include overcrowding, rampant tuberculosis and physical torture.
A Kurdish spokesperson has previously denied any mistreatment of prisoners.
Watch Dateline’s award-winning documentary about Australians who remain in indefinite detention in north-eastern Syria.
