SYDNEY, May 22 (Reuters) – A second group of Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group have \u200cdeparted a refugee camp in northeast Syria and may \u200cbe returning to Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.<\/p>\n
The broadcaster said a \u200bbus carrying the group left the Al-Roj camp on Thursday afternoon under escort by a convoy of Syrian government officials. The group is expected to reach Damascus, though it remains unclear when they might travel to \u200cAustralia, the report said.<\/p>\n
Australia’s \u2060home affairs ministry did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.<\/p>\n
The Australian government has previously ruled out \u2060providing direct assistance for the return of Australian families linked to ISIS but has acknowledged “very serious limits” to preventing citizens from re-entering the \u200bcountry.<\/p>\n
Earlier this \u200bmonth, four women and nine children \u200blinked to ISIS returned to \u200cAustralia after spending seven years in detention camps. Upon arrival, Kawsar Ahmad, 54, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, were charged with slavery offences, while 32-year-old Janai Safar faced terror-related charges.<\/p>\n
The return of the women drew criticism, with opponents accusing Australia’s centre-left government of failing \u200cto prevent their repatriation.<\/p>\n
Between 2012 and 2016, \u200bsome Australian women travelled to Syria \u200bto join their husbands who \u200bwere allegedly members of ISIS. Following the collapse \u200cof the caliphate in 2019, many \u200bwere detained in \u200bcamps, while others returned home.<\/p>\n
In January, the United States began moving detained ISIS members out of Syria after the collapse of \u200bthe Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic \u200cForces, which had been guarding several detention facilities housing ISIS \u200bfighters and affiliated civilians, including foreigners.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Renju Jose \u200bin Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SYDNEY, May 22 (Reuters) – A second group of Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[1648,35683,32768,34968,25874,42484,279,23965,95,1643],"class_list":["post-125603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-australia","tag-australian-broadcasting-corporation","tag-australian-government","tag-australian-women","tag-extremist-group","tag-isis-members","tag-islamic-state","tag-refugee-camp","tag-syria","tag-women-and-children"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116616246597552685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}