Australian government ‘planned’ to bring home all ISIS brides and children, says Save the Children

In the closing arguments of a legal fight for 31 women and children detained in Syrian camps, lawyers said it had been implied they would all be returned to Australia.

Thirty-one of the 34 Australian women and children held at the Al-Roj camp have joined the lawsuit. Picture: Save the Children Australia

There are no immediate plans to repatriate more than 30 Australian women and children who remain in a Syrian detention camp despite a group of 17 in the same location being brought home last year, a federal court has heard.

Since the first group of women and children, who are the families of jailed or dead Islamic State fighters, were returned to Australia on October 27 last year, charity Save the Children has taken up a legal fight to repatriate the remaining group to Australia, who have been detained in the Al-Roj camp for four years against their wishes.

But while lawyers for the charity argued the Australian government has always planned to bring all the women and children home and has the power to do so, the barrister acting on behalf of the commonwealth, Craig Lenehan, said there was no evidence of plans to repatriate the remaining 11 women and 20 children.

“Talking about a plan is not the same as making a plan let alone an arrangement or some form of agreement,” Mr Lenehan said.

“Nowhere in the file note or other documents do you find suggestion of that,” he said.

Asked by Justice Mark Moshinsky to clarify the “current position” on what the Australian government was doing to bring back the women and children, Mr Lenehan referred to correspondence from government officials which said they had not “been directed on the timing of repatriating the remaining women and children”.

Other correspondence said the situation would be “monitored” and the repatriation of people who remain in camps was “under careful consideration”.

Earlier, Save the Children barrister Peter Morrissey SC said that because a group of 17 women and children flown to Australia in October last year had been dubbed “cohort one”, it was implied there were plans to bring home further cohorts.

“(It) had been contemplated there would be several cohorts,” he told the federal court in Melbourne on Thursday.

“Australia clearly has got the capacity to repatriate. There can be no doubt. The repatriation of the cohort one tells its own story (that) we have capacity.”

Mr Morrissey insisted there was clear evidence of a “general repatriation effort” which covered all the Australian nationals located at the Al-Roj camp in northeast Syria, not just the group brought home last year.

The remaining 11 women and 21 children have “significant” health problems, and live in the camp surrounded by barbed wire and armed security guards, the court heard.

Under the control of the Autonomous Association of North and East Syria, the Al-Roj camp could be accessed by journalists, officials and charity workers but Mr Morrissey said “the women are detained involuntarily”.

ISIS bride Mariam Raad when she was at Al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria. She returned to Australia last year and has been charged by police. Picture: Four Corners

“Sanitary conditions are appalling. Medical care is limited. There is not enough running water, and temperatures reach over 40 regularly (in the summer),” he said.

As well, the AANES and the US – which contributes significant resources to the AANES to support the upkeep of the Al-Roj camp – have publicly derided the “very slow pace” of repatriation and there are no incidents of repatriation being “refused”, Mr Morrissey said.

Further, the Al-Roj camp – and the Al Hawl camp, located near the city of Hasakah close to the Iraqi border – pose a “security problem” and have expressed a desire to help repatriate all foreign nationals in the two detention camps.

Both camps were secured as detention centres for the families of Islamic State after the Global Coalition against Daesh, the anti-IS alliance of 85 countries led by the United States, defeated IS in March 2019.

Lawyers for Save the Children, who are all acting pro-bono on behalf of the women and children, are arguing the court should make an order of “habeas corpus” – meaning they should order authorities to bring the women and children to court in Australia.