NINETEEN Australian women and children arrived back in the country today after repatriation from Syria.

The seven women and 12 children had been held in camps guarded by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for the best part of a decade, having been associated with the Islamic State (Isis) terrorist group. The women are believed to have travelled to Syria to join Isis, where they married or were sold to Isis fighters and had children by them.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said any suspected of committing crimes would “face the full force of the law” and that “the government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group,” saying “these are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation.” He did not address why this logic precluded assistance to the children concerned, or whether the women had been victims of grooming or other abuse.

The jihadist Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) alliance, led by former al-Qaida fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa, swept to power in Syria at the end of 2024, having long ruled the north-western Idlib governorate under protection of the Turkish military.

Turkey has for decades viewed autonomous Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq as part of the same military network as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which fought a long insurgency for autonomy within Turkey, and routinely bombed them.

In January, the new Syrian authorities launched a military offensive against the SDF, forcing its withdrawal from major Isis prisoner camps such as al-Hol, whose inmate population dropped from 24,000 at the start of the year to “the low thousands” within a couple of months.

Most inmates from Syria have returned to their hometowns while others are seeking to return to their countries of origin.

Though their extended limbo in the camps was never a permanent solution to the issue of holding prisoners of war and their families following the military defeat of Isis by the SDF and the Syrian Arab Army, the dispersal across Syria without a judicial or rehabilitative process is also causing concern.