{"id":640173,"date":"2026-04-30T08:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/640173\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:25:09","slug":"trump-administration-urges-countries-to-help-citizens-stuck-in-syria-as-australia-maintains-hardline-stance-australian-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/640173\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration urges countries to help citizens stuck in Syria as Australia maintains hardline stance | Australian foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> says it is in \u201cactive communication\u201d with countries, urging them to repatriate citizens stranded in Syria, while the Australian government maintains its hardline stance towards Australian women and children detained since the fall of Islamic State.<\/p>\n

A group of four women, their nine children and grandchildren left al-Roj camp, in Syria\u2019s north-east, last Friday in a bid to return to Australia, with reports on Thursday morning that the Albanese government\u2019s refusal to help them has left them stuck in Damascus.<\/p>\n

Family members of the women and children did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Most of the group are three generations of the same family, who have previously said they travelled to Syria for humanitarian purposes.<\/p>\n

A further seven Australian women, and 14 of their children, remain in al-Roj camp, the Guardian has been told.<\/p>\n

The Australians are the wives, widows and children of jailed or dead Islamic State<\/a> fighters, and most have been held at the camp for more than six years. Many of the women have said they were coerced or tricked into entering Syria, or visited neighbouring countries for humanitarian reasons before being trafficked into IS territory. Some of the children were born in the camp and have never been outside it.<\/p>\n

None of the Australians has been charged with a crime, but one woman has been issued with a temporary exclusion order<\/a> seeking to prevent her return to Australia.<\/p>\n

Australia-based supporters of the women and children who assisted in previous return missions did not respond to a request for comment, but have previously been concerned about the combative stance taken by the Albanese government.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The squalid and dangerous al-Roj camp, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) but described by the US as an \u201cincubator for radicalisation\u201d, is being steadily shuttered, ahead of an expected handover to the Syrian government.<\/p>\n

News of the latest attempt by the Australians to return home prompted the Albanese government to again claim the cohort was not wanted, warning members would be prosecuted to the \u201cfull extent of the law\u201d on return to Australia if they had committed an offence.<\/p>\n

But the US government, which funds the camp\u2019s operation, has consistently insisted countries take back their citizens, and has repeatedly offered to help with repatriations.<\/p>\n

A senior administration official said in a statement to the Guardian early Thursday morning (Australian time):<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration is in active communication with nations that have citizens in Syria, specifically within the Roj camp, to facilitate repatriation of both those with and without Isis affiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments came as Syrian officials told the Associated Press the group of Australians were stuck in the country\u2019s capital because the Albanese government refused to allow their repatriation.<\/p>\n

The four women and nine children left al-Roj camp in the custody of the Syrian government last Friday, travelling by road to the capital, Damascus. However, Syria\u2019s information ministry said in a statement that the families were turned back before reaching Damascus international airport, because \u201cthe Australian government had refused to receive them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese families are still awaiting a solution, which can only be achieved through coordination with the relevant international parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ministry said that the families, through a lawyer, had been issued Australian travel documents that were delivered by an \u201cindividual\u201d that it didn\u2019t identify while they were still in north-eastern Syria.<\/p>\n

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese<\/a>, said on Thursday: \u201cthe United States position is not a new one. That has been their position for some time, and we have indicated our position for some time.<\/p>\n

Asked about the US\u2019s encouragement of repatriations on Thursday, Burke said the government\u2019s position was \u201ccompletely unchanged\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not repatriate, we will not assist these individuals,\u201d Burke said. \u201cWhether they choose to, as citizens can, to try to come back to Australia is something that if they try on their own without any of our assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian governments have previously undertaken two successful repatriation missions: of eight orphaned children in 2019 and of four women and 13 children in 2022.<\/p>\n

But it has since refused to repatriate any more of its citizens.<\/p>\n

One returned woman was charged with entering a proscribed area, Raqqa province. Mariam Raad pleaded guilty and was discharged conditionally in a NSW court.<\/p>\n

Last October, two women and four children escaped nearby al-Hawl detention camp<\/a>, making their way across Syria to Lebanon, where they were given passports at the Australian embassy. They returned to Australia on a commercial flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration says it is in \u201cactive communication\u201d with countries, urging them to repatriate citizens stranded in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-640173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}