The last group of Australian women and children held at the al-Roj detention camp in north-eastern Syria has departed for Damascus, with an expected return to Australia anticipated within days. Footage obtained by an Australian Broadcasting Corporation news crew showed a minivan leaving the camp under Syrian government escort on Thursday, carrying seven women and 14 children — all Australian citizens holding valid travel documents.
Al-Roj is a camp in north-eastern Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been described by the United States as an "incubator for radicalisation" and is being steadily closed ahead of an expected handover to the Syrian government. The Australians held there are the wives, widows, and children of jailed or deceased Islamic State fighters. Most have been detained at the camp for more than six years, and some of the children were born there and have never known life outside it. The women's journeys to Syria took place between 2012 and 2016, and accounts vary widely — many say they were coerced, deceived, or trafficked into IS-held territory.
This marks the fifth group of Australians to leave Syrian detention since 2019. Last month, four women and nine children returned to Australia from Damascus, and three of those women were immediately arrested upon landing in Melbourne and Sydney. Two of them, Kawsar Ahmad and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, face slavery-related charges, while a third, Janai Safar, has been charged with joining a terrorist organisation and travelling to a proscribed area. One woman in the current group is subject to a temporary exclusion order, complicating her re-entry.
The Australian government has maintained it is providing no direct assistance to facilitate the returns, though it acknowledges there are significant legal limits on preventing citizens from coming home. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek confirmed the returning group would face the same legal scrutiny as their predecessors, while Health Minister Mark Butler noted that Australians have the right as citizens to return, but would be met at the border by police if offences were suspected. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said Australia's security and intelligence agencies have been preparing for these returns for over a decade.
The closures of camps like al-Roj and the nearby al-Hawl camp — both in Syria's north-east — have been accelerating following the partial collapse of SDF control in early 2025, which prompted the United States to begin transferring detained IS members out of Syria. Washington, which funds the camps' operations, has repeatedly pressed countries including Australia to repatriate their citizens. The fate of the returning Australians will be closely watched, as it tests how democracies balance security concerns with the legal rights of citizens — including children who had no choice in their circumstances.