By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-06-25 01:45:12 | Updated at 2026-06-25 02:47:37
1 hour ago
SYDNEY – The last Australian woman stranded in the Middle East over suspected links to the Islamic State group will be allowed to return home, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on June 25.
Dozens of women and children have been returning to Australia from squalid Syrian detention camps, where they were held for years after the collapse of Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate.
In many cases, the women left Australia to follow their husbands who had signed up as jihadist fighters, which has seen them widely dubbed the “IS brides” back home.
The unnamed woman is the last of more than 30 women and children to return to Australia.
Burke said the authorities had blocked her return using a “temporary exclusion order”, but this had now expired and Australia could not legally turn away one of its citizens.
The woman would face stringent security conditions once she returned to Australia, Burke said, including surveillance and limitations on computer and telephone access.
“There will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance and we have gone to the legal limit that we’re able to,” Burke said.
Three women were immediately arrested after returning to Australia earlier in 2026, charged with crimes ranging from slavery to joining a terrorist organisation.
Hundreds of women from Western nations were lured to the Middle East as the Islamic State group gained prominence.
Australia, Canada, Britain and other countries are still grappling with how to treat citizens stranded after the group collapsed.
Australia’s Human Rights Commission has urged the government to help repatriate women and children stuck in Syria’s notorious detention camps.
But others have accused the women of turning their back on Australia and believe they should be left to face the consequences. AFP
