“People who made a horrible choice”: in Australia, the return of women and children linked to the Islamic State sparks controversy

A group of seven women and 12 children linked to fighters from the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group are on their way to Australia after years spent in Syria, Australia’s interior minister said on Tuesday. These «épouses de l’EI» are Australian nationals who left the Roj camp, controlled by Syrian Kurdish forces, last week.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke indicated they would not receive any assistance from the Australian government, saying “Any member of this group who has committed crimes can expect to face the full force of the law.”. “These are people who made the horrible choice to join a dangerous terrorist organization and place their children in an unspeakable situation.”he added.

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Une troisième femme a également été arrêtée à son arrivée à Sydney

Part of the group will arrive in Melbourne while the rest will go to Sydney, public broadcaster ABC said. This month, 13 more Australians – four women and their nine children – arrived by plane from Syria. Two of the women, a mother and her daughter, were arrested on arrival in Melbourne. Police accuse them of keeping a slave after traveling to Syria in 2014 to support the Islamic State group.

They were detained by Kurdish forces in 2019. A third woman was also arrested on arrival in Sydney and charged with entering a prohibited area and joining a «organisation terroriste». Hundreds of women from Western countries were lured to the Middle East as ISIS gained prominence in the early 2010s, in many cases following husbands who had joined as jihadist fighters.