Two planes carrying 19 Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State group in Syria landed in Melbourne and Sydney on Tuesday, according to ABC News. Seven women and 12 children made the journey on Qatar Airways flights, less than three weeks after a separate group of 13 people in similar situations returned to Australia.
Two women with seven children flew to Melbourne. Four women with six children landed about an hour later in Sydney, a joint police and intelligence agency statement said. No one was charged on arrival, but the statement said investigations into their activities in Syria were continuing.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke made clear the government had not facilitated the returns. "The government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group," Burke said. "These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation," he added.
The returnees came from Roj camp, a location in northeast Syria near the Iraq border where people linked to the Islamic State have been held since IS forces in the Middle East were defeated in 2019. An earlier effort in February to repatriate 34 Australian women and children failed after Syrian authorities blocked the convoy's route to Damascus.
Three of the four women who returned in the previous group have since been charged with slavery and terrorism offenses and remain in custody.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament: "I have nothing but contempt for anyone who has any sympathy for ISIS." Burke said law enforcement and intelligence agencies had been preparing for the returns since 2014.
Community leader and general practice doctor Jamal Rifi, who led the effort to bring the Australians home, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Syrian authorities had been persuaded that most of the Australians remaining at Roj were children with a legal right to grow up in Australia. "These women are caring mothers," he said of the 19 who had just landed. "Definitely joining willingly the death cult of the un-Islamic caliphate, it's a terrible decision. Some of these women, I believe they were tricked to go there. Some of them are victims of the death cult and others are not," Riji said.
Burke said the government's priority remained the safety of the Australian community and that anyone who committed crimes could expect to face the full force of the law.
