ROJ CAMP, Syria (AP) — A group of Australian citizens left on Monday a camp in northeast Syria housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants to begin the journey to their home country, part of an ongoing repatriation process.
Relatives of the 34 individuals, from 11 families, traveled from Australia to accompany them, said Hakmiyeh Ibrahim, the director of the Roj camp. They will make their way to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and then fly to Australia.
Roj camp houses about 2,200 people from around 50 nationalities, mostly women and children, who have supposed links to the extremist group. Most in the camp are not technically prisoners and have not been accused of a crime, but they have, in effect, been detained in the heavily guarded camp, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The most well-known resident of the Roj camp, Shamima Begum, was 15 when she and two other girls fled from London in 2015 to marry IS fighters in Syria. Begum married a Dutch man fighting for IS and had three children, who all died. She recently lost an appeal against the British government’s decision to revoke her U.K. citizenship.
Monday’s operation is the first this year. Ibrahim, the camp director, said 16 families were repatriated last year, including German, British and French nationals. In 2022, three Australian families were repatriated.
The fate of the Roj camp and the similar but larger al-Hol camp has been a matter of debate for years. Human rights groups have cited poor living conditions and pervasive violence in the camps, but many countries have been reluctant to take back their citizens who are detained there.
Government forces took control of al-Hol camp last month amid fighting with the SDF that led to state forces seizing most of the territory in northeast Syria previously controlled by the Kurdish forces.
The U.N. refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of al-Hol camp have left and that the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq by the U.S. military to stand trial there.
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