Australia, explained.
The Al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of suspected ISIS group fighters, in the northeastern Hasakeh governorate, Syria (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)
Leaving detainees stranded in Syria doesn’t reduce risk – it can export the very insecurity governments hope to prevent.
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Australia’s quiet returnees from Syria are in fact a loud warningAustralia’s quiet returnees from Syria are in fact a loud warning
The recent arrival of two Australian women and their four children from the Al-Hol detention camp in northeast Syria should surprise – and alarm – Australian policymakers.
How did six Australians, whose names and ages remain withheld, manage to leave one of the world’s most tightly controlled camps and travel across continents to Victoria?
A few weeks ago, we visited Al-Hol and Al-Roj. We found a functioning underground economy: hawala agents transferring money, residents accessing the internet, and a porous security system. After our visit, several residents emailed us directly seeking help to leave. The camps are not the sealed environments they are often assumed to be.
Why leave? The humanitarian conditions are desperate – overcrowding, disease, trauma. A recent US State Department report to Congress described tuberculosis outbreaks, contaminated water, and widespread psychological distress. Media investigations have also documented shocking abuses, including the exploitation of adolescent boys and covert tunnels used to conceal them. Yet many residents remain ambivalent. Of the women we spoke with, roughly a quarter said they would never return home, and half were undecided. Some will only leave with imprisoned husbands. Others imagine resettlement elsewhere.
Still, these two Australian women clearly chose to act – reportedly breaking out of the camp, travelling more than 500 kilometres to the Lebanese border, and securing papers in Beirut - because they had no alternative. Like many European countries, Australia has suspended repatriation on “security, diplomatic and community welfare” grounds.
The longer these camps exist, the more they breed instability, radicalisation, and transnational insecurity.
Today, about 28,000 women and children remain in Al-Hol and Al-Roj – around 21,000 Iraqis and Syrians, and 6,000 from roughly 40 other countries, including about 30 Australians. Some 9,000 adolescent boys and men are held separately. These are not temporary facilities: many families have been detained for more than five years. The camps represent both a humanitarian catastrophe and a security tinderbox. Alongside aid workers and traders, we saw ISIS recruiters. A quarter of residents remain committed to the group’s ideology, and two-thirds of children receive no education or protection.
They also constitute an affront to international law through mass arbitrary and indefinite detention. The situation is slowly shifting from detention to displacement, as the UN Refugee Agency increasingly manages them as refugee, not prison, camps. This transition, while legally necessary, carries new security risks: residents now have more mobility, access to external funding, and in some cases, the capacity to move beyond the camps undetected – as the Australians appear to have done.
The six Australians who have returned may well be victims, deceived or coerced into travelling to Syria, and deeply regretful. But others who remain may not be – and may soon be on the move. If not for legal or humanitarian reasons, then for hard security ones, the international community, including Australia, must act to empty the camps.
Our experience supporting the rehabilitation and reintegration of returnees in Iraq, the Western Balkans, and Central Asia shows that these processes are labour, time, and resource intensive – but they work. None of the communities we have supported has seen a return to violence.
Australia’s decision to pause repatriations is intended to manage risk. In reality, it multiplies it. The longer these camps exist, the more they breed instability, radicalisation, and transnational insecurity. The escape of two Australian women and four children should not be seen as an anomaly, but as a warning. Otherwise, today’s “community welfare considerations” risk becoming tomorrow’s global security crisis.
About the authors
Khalid Koser
Dr Khalid Koser is a former Nonresident Fellow of the Lowy Institute.
Lilla Schumicky-Logan
Lilla Schumicky-Logan holds a PhD on conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and reintegration of at-risk youth.
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