MELBOURNE, Australia — Airliners carrying Australian women and children with alleged ties to the Islamic State group landed in Australia on Thursday.
A plane reportedly carrying three Australian women and eight children landed in Melbourne, while a separate plane carrying a woman and her son arrived in Sydney soon after.
The Australian government announced on Wednesday that the 13, who have spent years in a Syrian desert camp, planned to return to Australia. Police said the women face potential criminal charges relating to their alleged time in the Islamic State group's so-called caliphate that spanned Syria and Iraq.
Both Qatar Airways flights took off minutes apart from Doha bound for Australia’s two largest cities. QR904, which landed in Melbourne first, was followed by QR908 in Sydney.
The Australian government had condemned the women for supporting Islamic State militants by traveling to Syria and had refused to help repatriate them.
Police have been investigating for more than a decade Australians' potential involvement in atrocities while in Syria, including terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity such as slave trading.
Deakin University extremism expert Joshua Roose said Australian authorities were investigating abuses within the caliphate including enslaving Yazidi women and harsh policing of sharia law.
“Some of the worst forms of violence were in fact enacted by women, so we need to understand that it’s a problem,” Roose told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The child welfare-focused aid agency Save the Children failed in a court bid in 2024 to compel the Australian government to repatriate citizens from Syrian camps.
Save the Children Australia chief executive Mat Tinkler said Australian authorities now had to give priority to the returned children's welfare.
“Two-thirds of this cohort that we’re talking about ... are children. So there’s been a lot of focus on the women and the choices they may have made. But we need the focus now to be on these children and give them a chance of resuming a normal life here in Australia," Tinkler said.
Australian governments have repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions. Other Australians have returned without government assistance.
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