Australia and other countries must continue to rescue their citizens from “dire” conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.
The global director general of the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation, Robert Mardini, said the “state of in-limbo cannot last longer”.
“From a humanitarian perspective, this situation is simply untenable,” he said.
In October, the Australian government repatriated four Australian women and 13 children from a Syrian detention camp that was holding the wives and children of slain and jailed Islamic State fighters.
But about 40 Australian citizens – about 30 children and about 10 women – are believed to remain there. While the the government has not yet announced any further repatriation missions, it is understood to remain committed to bringing the remaining Australian citizens out of the Syrian camps and back to Australia.
The issue of the repatriation of Australian women and children was raised with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, at an Iftar dinner this week, held by the Australian National Imams Council.
The Coalition opposition was highly critical of the first repatriation mission and called on the government to prioritise “Australia’s national interest”.
Mardini said the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent gained a firsthand view of the dire conditions when they delivered medical services to the camps.
“We bear witness to the devastating humanitarian situation where those women and children are living in terrible conditions in winter, in summer, very poor services, an extremely volatile security situation where sometimes fighting is erupting in the camp,” he said.
“So you have a generation of children growing up in terrible conditions.”
Asked whether he would encourage the Australian government to continue working through the practical challenges of bringing home more of its citizens, Mardini said the ICRC had been “very consistent in recommending to all states having nationals in north-east Syria to repatriate them”.
He said this call would not preclude police or security agencies from investigating individuals and taking action after repatriation operations.
“This is not a call for impunity for whoever is there,” Mardini said. “It needs to happen, following due process in the framework of the law.”
Save the Children Australia urged the government to “heed the calls from humanitarian, legal and national security experts to repatriate the remaining Australians as a matter of urgency”.
The group’s chief executive officer, Mat Tinkler, said the repatriations last year “demonstrated clearly that the government has the ability to bring home every innocent Australian child from Roj camp with their mothers”.
“They’ve now spent more than four years trapped in gruelling desert camps,” Tinkler said. “Many were born there and have never known life outside a tent.
“It’s not sustainable to allow Australian women and children to continue languishing there.”
Canada this week repatriated 10 children and four women from Roj camp, bringing to 10 the number of countries that have repatriated citizens from Syrian camps this year. A total of 1,167 foreign nationals have been brought out of the camps in 2023.
The US state department has consistently urged countries around the world to repatriate their citizens, as a further, final dismantling of the vestiges of the Isis caliphate.
“Approximately 10,000 individuals from more than 60 countries outside Syria and Iraq remain in the al-Hol and Roj displaced persons camps in north-east Syria,” Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson, said.
“Repatriation is the only durable solution for this population, most of whom are vulnerable children under the age of 12.”
Mardini, who visited Australia last month, also voiced strong support for the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, a relatively new UN agreement that aims to impose a blanket ban on atomic weapons.
The Labor party had pledged to sign and ratify the treaty but this stance was subject to a number of difficult-to-meet conditions.
“Nuclear weapons, by definition, cannot discriminate,” Mardini said.
“This is why our position has always been that the only way forward is prohibition. Because no state, no humanitarian organisation can respond to a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of a nuclear event.
“What we cannot respond to, we must prevent.”
The US and other countries with nuclear weapons have opposed the treaty, saying it ignores the realities of the international security situation. The US has argued the treaty would undermine “extended deterrence” relationships with allies such as Australia.
Mardini said he would not comment on political considerations, but his organisation had been “very consistent in encouraging all states to join” the treaty.
“We know for a fact that there are today currently over 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world – a number which, according to recent studies, is expected to grow,” he said. “The risk that they may be used again, by accident, miscalculation or design is simply unacceptable.”
More broadly, Mardini said one of the biggest challenges for the ICRC was how to respond to rising humanitarian needs at a time when budgets were constrained.
He said the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was “driving devastation, destruction, human suffering” and required “the full attention of the international community and international humanitarian organisations”.
But he added that there were many other armed conflicts around the globe, “many of them protracted, raging for decades”.
Asked whether he was frustrated that such events fell out of the international media spotlight, Mardini said it was not a new phenomenon.
“It has always been the case. And it’s also our role to shine a spotlight on what is happening in those places where cameras have left long ago – and the plight of the people and the need for sustained support.”
