Australia and other countries must continue to rescue their citizens from “dire” conditions in camps in northeastern Syria, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) global director-general Robert Mardini said.
The “state of in-limbo cannot last longer,” he said, adding that “from a humanitarian perspective, this situation is simply untenable.”
In October last year, the Australian government repatriated four Australian women and 13 children from a Syrian detention camp that was holding the wives and children of slain and jailed Islamic State fighters.
Photo: AFP
However, about 40 Australian citizens — about 30 children and 10 women — are believed to remain there. While the Australian government has not announced any further repatriation missions, it is understood to be committed to taking the remaining Australian citizens out of the Syrian camps and back to Australia.
The issue of the repatriation of Australian women and children was raised with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at an iftar dinner held by the Australian National Imams Council last week.
The Australian opposition Coalition was highly critical of the first repatriation mission and called on the government to prioritize “Australia’s national interest.”
The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent gained a firsthand view of the dire conditions when they delivered medical services to the camps, Mardini said.
“We bear witness to the devastating humanitarian situation where those women and children are living in terrible conditions in winter, in summer, very poor services, an extremely volatile security situation where sometimes fighting is erupting in the camp,” he said.
“So you have a generation of children growing up in terrible conditions,” he added.
Asked whether he would encourage the Australian government to continue working through the practical challenges of taking more of its citizens home, Mardini said the ICRC had been “very consistent in recommending to all states having nationals in northeast Syria to repatriate them.”
This call would not preclude police or security agencies from investigating individuals and taking action after repatriation operations, he said.
“This is not a call for impunity for whoever is there,” Mardini said. “It needs to happen, following due process in the framework of the law.”
Save the Children Australia urged the government to “heed the calls from humanitarian, legal and national security experts to repatriate the remaining Australians as a matter of urgency.”
The repatriations last year “demonstrated clearly that the government has the ability to bring home every innocent Australian child from Roj camp with their mothers,” Save the Children chief executive officer Mat Tinkler said.
“They’ve now spent more than four years trapped in grueling desert camps,” Tinkler said. “Many were born there and have never known life outside a tent... It’s not sustainable to allow Australian women and children to continue languishing there.”
Canada last week repatriated 10 children and four women from Roj camp, taking the number of countries that have repatriated citizens from Syrian camps this year to 10. A total of 1,167 foreign nationals have been taken out of the camps this year.
The US Department of State has consistently urged countries around the world to repatriate their citizens, as a further, final dismantling of the vestiges of the Islamic State “caliphate.”
“Approximately 10,000 individuals from more than 60 countries outside Syria and Iraq remain in the al-Hol and Roj displaced persons camps in northeast Syria,” US Department of State spokesperson Vedant Patel said.
“Repatriation is the only durable solution for this population, most of whom are vulnerable children under the age of 12,” Patel added.
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