SYDNEY: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused help Tuesday for 34 Australian citizens related to suspected Islamic State jihadists, as they try to return home from a Syrian detention camp.
The Australians were released from the Roj camp on Monday but failed to reach the capital Damascus because of “poor coordination” with the Syrian authorities, a Kurdish official told AFP in Syria.
They were forced to return to the detention camp, said camp official Rashid Omar.
“As my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it,” Albanese told public broadcaster ABC.
“We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life,” he added.
“It is unfortunate that children are impacted by this as well, but we are not providing any support.”
Any of the citizens who made it back to Australia would face the “full force of the law” if they had committed crimes, the prime minister said.
The repatriation of the families of Islamic State members has sparked controversy in Australia, where some political leaders believe they pose a threat to national security.
Conversely, other voices have called on the government to assist the Australian citizens held in “horrific” conditions.
The humanitarian organisation Save the Children Australia filed a lawsuit in 2023 on behalf of 11 women and 20 children, seeking their repatriation.
But the Federal Court ruled against Save the Children, saying the Australian government did not control their detention in Syria.
Kurdish forces still control the Roj camp, where relatives of foreign jihadists are detained.
Syrian Kurdish forces withdrew from the larger al-Hol camp in January when the central government’s security forces took control of it.
Since then, thousands of women and children of foreign jihadists have fled that camp to unknown destinations.
