A group of 11 women and children have landed in Melbourne after being detained for more than seven years in Syrian detention camps since the fall of Islamic State. Some the women face possible criminal charges – including terrorism and slavery related offences – with the Australian federal police (AFP) expected to provide an update later on Thursday.
The plane believed to be carrying Kawsar Abbas, her eldest daughters Zahra and Zeinab, and eight children and grandchildren, landed in Melbourne at about 5.30pm Thursday, following a journey that began in Damascus on Wednesday. Janai Safar and her child are also expected to land in Sydney on Thursday.
Guardian Australia has attempted to contact family members and legal representatives for all four women. The return to Australia caps a remarkable saga for the women, all of whom spent more than a decade in the Middle East, firstly under Islamic State rule, and then in squalid detention camps after escaping the violent end of the so-called caliphate.
But the possibility of criminal charges, and an increasingly fraught political debate about whether they pose a threat, means their resettlement will not be straightforward. For their children, some of whom were born in detention camps, the immediate future is expected to involve a range of supports, many of them coordinated by state governments, including medical, educational, psychological, and de-radicalisation programs.
On Wednesday morning, the government was alerted to the planned departure of the group, who left al-Roj and travelled to Damascus last month. They all hold Australian passports.