Prime Minister Scott Morrison is unmoved by calls to bring the three surviving children of Australia’s most notorious terrorist home from Syria.
Khaled Sharrouf’s three remaining children are being held in a refugee camp in northern Syria after surviving a fierce battle for Islamic State’s last stronghold in Baghouz.
Their grandmother, Karen Nettleton, has called on the federal government to help the children return to Australia.
However, Mr Morrison has not been swayed by her pleas.
“I’m not going to put one Australian life at risk to try and extract people from these dangerous situations,” he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
“I think it’s appalling that Australians have gone and fought against our values and our way of life and peace-loving countries of the world in joining the Daesh fight.
“I think it’s even more despicable that they put their children in the middle of it.”
Sharrouf and two of his sons were killed in a US air strike on Syria in 2017.
The children’s mother is believed to have died of a medical condition in 2015, after following Sharrouf to Syria from Sydney.
His daughters Zaynab and Hoda and eight-year-old son Hamza are in the Kurdish-controlled Al-Hawl camp, alongside eight other Australian women and their children.
Zaynab, 17, has two young children and is heavily pregnant with her third.
“They’re with other Australian and foreign fighters (in the camps) and they shouldn’t be in amongst all of that,” Mrs Nettleton told the ABC.
Save the Children Australia’s Mat Tinkler said Australia should follow the lead of France, which recently repatriated five orphaned children from Syria.
“We seek to ensure Australian children trapped in Syria are not punished for the crimes of their parents,” he said.
“It is entirely within the Australian government’s power to bring these children home and we urge them to do so immediately.”
Meanwhile, a Sydney tradesman who also travelled to Syria to join IS in 2015 and is being held in a Kurdish-run camp has begged the government to let him and his family come back.
Mohammed Noor Masri told the Sydney Morning Herald he wants to get his Australian wife Shayma Assaad, who’s pregnant, and their three boys aged three, two and one out of Syria.
“[I feel] remorseful, regretful. I mean, people make mistakes. And you have to pay the price for your mistake,” the 26-year-old said.
Masri claims he didn’t fight for IS, but instead worked in a hospital, where he maintained refrigerators and air conditioning units.
Top Comments
I feel ambivalent about this. On the one hand, the parents are to blame for the situation but they are dead. The children are now stranded without a responsible adult with them. I don't reckon the 17 yo pregnant one is capable of being responsible. On the other hand, bringing them back will put the people who rescue them in danger and people at home in danger. Perhaps Granny can go over there and be the responsible adult? It seems hard to leave an eight yo in that situation, but can they deradicalise them back here? It would be a gamble and if there is the slightest risk to other children later...
Morrison thinks it’s despicable that they put their children in that situation so he’s going to leave the children in that situation, just to show he’s equally lacking in basic morality? I mean I shouldn’t be surprised, Syria’s the next best thing to putting the kids on Manus island.
It’s a UN refugee camp, and the US army holds Syria. With ISIS pushed back it’s less dangerous than it has been in a decade. If SBS can take a whole crew there to film live TV, Australia can expatriate some children. Or if we can’t I seriously have to question what DFAT is doing to earn its funding.
The USA has implemented a rapid withdrawal of its troops, leaving approx 200 soldiers there, but you seem rather cavalier about others putting their lives at risk to rescue those kids. If anyone is despicable, it is the grandmother who assisted her daughter so that she could travel overseas with the kids, so they could hook up with the husband in Syria Don't forget it was one of Sharouf's kids who was filmed holding the severed head of some poor bugger and Yazhidi women rescued from ISIS have stated that it is one of Sharouf's daughters who took great pleasure in physically abusing them. Buy hey, whatever, they're Australian, so let's bring them home (not).
Yeah. I believe countries have a duty to take back their war criminals, there is the contentious issue of what to do with the progeny of said criminals. It's nice to assume that these kids would return to Australia without any sign of radicalisation, but it's unfortunately more likely that they've been indoctrinated into ISIS-led and influenced thinking. I daresay our government is not equipped to handle that. It would be irresponsible and naive to simply re-patriate them, but on the other hand, they can't be detained or punished just on account of who their parents were.
Yeah, this doesn't sit right with me. Kids can't be held responsible for their parents disgraceful actions, one of them is only 8 years old. It's not like they had a choice not to go there.
They should be repatriated back here if they are under 18, the older ones held reponsible for any crimes and the younger ones and older ones put in intensive therapy to try and reverse the indoctrination.