A former ADF Special Operations intelligence analyst who is now an expert on countering violent extremism says Australian children brought out of Syrian refugee camps will require intensive support to successfully integrate into the community.
“It’s a long, intensive and individualised process but, done holistically, will have excellent results,” Shane Healey said. “Australia has the capability and the expertise to support these children.”
Guardian Australia revealed on Sunday that the Australian government was preparing a repatriation operation to extract selected families out of the hostile camps in north-east Syria.
More than 60 Australians – widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters – remain held within the al-Hawl and Roj detention camps. Many of the women say they were coerced, tricked, or forced into travelling to Syria by husbands who have since died.
There are more than 40 children within the Australian cohort, the majority aged under six. Several were born in the detention camps and know no life outside.
The initial Australian mission will not be able to bring the entire cohort out of the camps. Subsequent operations are expected in the coming months.
Healey, a veteran of more than 15 years in Australian Special Operations who served multiple deployments across the Middle East, said the children brought from the camps, after being held for years in difficult and dangerous conditions, would need a comprehensive support program “wrapped around them”.
In June this year, the Commonwealth Secretariat launched a guide to managing the reintegration of violent extremists and their families, written by Australian Peta Lowe.
The guide emphasises the need for community engagement and social inclusion for successful reintegration. “Every individual’s circumstances and challenges are different and distinctive,” it states.
Healey said Australia had a moral obligation to extract the Australian women and children from the camps. “I don’t think any child should be growing up in that environment.”
Healey said the “significant Islamic State organisation” within the camps posed an ongoing danger, particularly to children.
“IS is thriving in the camps. That ideology is everywhere. Those children are still living in that bubble, they are being held in that world.”
‘This is where they are being moulded’
He said children were spending vital, formative years in violent and dangerous camps.
“This is where they are being moulded. This is their formative time, you get your core values from your childhood. What you learn so young is deeply embedded,” Healey said. “It’s not the kids’ fault, they didn’t choose to be there.”
Healey said the government could establish an Australian-run and controlled centre in a Middle Eastern country where the children could be moved for medical and security checks, and to undertake reintegration and education programs, for several months, even a year, before they move back to Australia.
He said the country had world-leading countering violent extremism experts able to assist the Australians brought out of the camps.
“We’re strong on terrorism, and on protecting Australians. This doesn’t undermine that, we are talking about Australian kids.”
Other countries with nationals inside the Syrian camps have been steadily repatriating their citizens.
Germany has repatriated 91 of its citizens, France 86 and the US 26. Kazakhstan has returned more than 700 of its nationals, Russia and Kosovo more than 200 each.
“It’s not a hard thing,” Healey said. “To get kids out of Syria, it’s not like it hasn’t been done before. There are people who have been doing this a long time, it’s a well-beaten path.”
Sources internationally have confirmed to the Guardian that preparations are under way for the Australian government’s rescue mission, said to be imminent.
The majority of Australians – including 44 children – are held in the Roj camp, closer to the Iraqi border and which is considered safer than al-Hawl, but where malnutrition, illness and violence are common.
Al-Hawl, where one Australian family group and several children with a right to Australian citizenship are held, is considered exceedingly dangerous, with a rampant IS organisation, and where more than 100 murders were reported in the 18 months to June this year.
A security operation by the Syrian Democratic Forces last month arrested more than 300 IS operatives inside al-Hawl, seized weapons and liberated at least six women found hidden and chained inside the camp, and who had been tortured by Islamic State over years.
Australian children have suffered acutely in detention in Syria.
The family of Sydney-born teenager Yusuf Zahab was told in July that he had died of uncertain causes. He was 11 years old when he was taken to Syria. He had previously contracted tuberculosis and had sent desperate pleas for help during an IS siege of al-Sina’a prison, in al-Hasakah, in January 2022.
In 2021, an 11-year-old Australian girl collapsed due to malnutrition in al-Roj camp. And in 2020, a three-year-old Australian girl suffered severe frostbite to her fingers during a bitterly cold winter.
Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said already “appallingly harsh conditions” in al-Hawl were growing worse.
“The children here have less food, clean water, healthcare and education than international standards call for. They are endlessly exposed to dangers, and their rights are ignored. A lack of attention is not an excuse to forget the women and children here.
“We welcome the efforts that have been made to repatriate women and children back to their home countries. But this camp remains the shame of the international community.”
