Mohamed Ibrahim can barely bring himself to recall his run-in with so-called Islamic State fighters.
With tears in his eyes, the husband and father-of-three spoke about the eight militants who stopped his bus in Syria in late 2017 after living under IS rule for years, pressing a rifle to his cheek.
"I started to sweat. My heart was pounding," Mr Ibrahim said.
"I thought that the men that were down on the road, they were so young, they were maybe 16 years old. They were not adults. So, if they were told to shoot, they would shoot me."
The thought of bringing IS-linked Australian women and 44 children back from a detention camp, called Roj, in the north of Syria, terrifies the former ambulance driver.
The first group of four women and 13 children were taken from the camp on Thursday afternoon and have boarded a plane home.
His wife Maisaa Mhanna said the brutality of IS had been hard for them to escape.
"One woman didn't want to wear the complete chador covering [an Islamic clothing that covers the entire face leaving only the eyes exposed] and they shaved her head right in front of us, they said next time she would be slaughtered," she said.
The couple and their three children fled Syria in 2019 and made it to Sydney via Lebanon last year.
The IS brides, who are the widows or wives of dead and imprisoned militants, had been meeting with government agencies inside the Roj camp ahead of their repatriation flight, according to a source close to the families.
The Albanese government recently overturned a Coalition decision refusing repatriation to the families.
For Mr Ibrahim it brings back moments he'd rather forget.
"Our house was destroyed, in war there is no life. There's no peace. There was only fear. Your spirit is tired," he said.
The Roj camp, on the border with Iraq, has about 60,000 residents according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, who oversee the running of the tent city.
The Syrian Democratic Forces are a largely Kurdish military backed by the United States, which were formed during the Syrian civil war in opposition to both IS and the Syrian forces under leader Bashar al-Assad.
The camp is seen as a stepping stone for people looking to be repatriated to their countries of origin after being displaced or joining IS.
Many of the Australian women in the camp have been in Syria since 2014, and were moved between refugee areas since the attempted caliphate fell in 2019.
It's a lengthy period, which the Ibrahim family says leaves scars.
"They need to leave those thoughts of death behind. Teach their children about what is right. They need to put them in school, so they can learn, not just an education but to learn the path of good and not the path of killing," Mr Ibrahim said.
"There is fear for the community as well," Ms Mhanna said.
"Once they find out that that child's parents are from Daesh [the Arabic word used to describe IS], there's a fear for the people here."
Mr Ibrahim's sister Mira has provided significant support for her brother since he arrived, and helps others struggling with the psychological toll of the Syrian conflict.
She said the prospect of the women returning had split her community.
"To be honest, it's very complicated situation. I wouldn't exactly answer to yes or no," she said.
"I feel sorry for them, for the women ... no one can guarantee what's going to happen after. So, I know we need to give them a chance. But at the same time, there is no guarantee [of our safety]."
Control orders 'like bail'
One thing providing comfort to those hesitant over the repatriation is a suite of strict control orders the women will have to live under.
Mark Nolan, from the Centre of Law and Justice, said the orders, overseen by the Australian Federal Police, would be "like bail" for them.
"The women have agreed to control orders," Professor Nolan said.
"This could mean as much as a tracking device, or routine monitoring like a bail situation, and it could mean a stay on their travel, and their use of social media."
Professor Nolan said any breach of these control orders could see the women jailed for up to five years.
Any other charges, like one on entering and remaining in a declared zone would be at the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sally Downing, who would need permission to prosecute from the federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
Kim Rubenstein, a University of Canberra citizenship expert, said it would be a matter of proving who the parents of the children are to establish citizenship by descent.
"There are no character requirements on a child it is just an application, but once they turn 18, the government can make a decision on their character," Professor Rubenstein said.
"I think there are some cases where we've seen the government starting to question whether the actual Australian father is in fact, biologically the father of that child."
The women have also recently been taken for DNA testing.
Women as victims and perpetrators
Aid organisation Save the Children Australia said the conditions in the Roj camp were leaving the children vulnerable to serious injury and death.
"Australians would be shocked to see the conditions Australian children have been languishing in for the past three years," charity CEO Mat Tinkler said.
"They are living in uninsulated tents, exposed to the freezing cold winters and scorching hot summers, with inadequate access to nourishing food, and suffering from untreated wounds and poor mental health."
In a joint statement Australian charities have decried the treatment of the women and said the government must recognise those "trafficked from Australia and forcibly married in Syria".
Postdoctoral research fellow at Canberra's Charles Sturt University campus, Kiriloi Ingram said that attitude of victimhood can be a dangerous one.
Dr Ingram, who has studied the radicalisation of western women by IS, said that by becoming mothers, the women were fulfilling a fundamental pillar of the group's mission.
She said it remained to be seen whether they had wilfully joined the group.
The women have stood by their view that were not aware of the situation they were involved in when arriving in Syria.
"If these women did actively go and join Islamic State on their own accord, then they were contributing, and they were supporting a terrorist group Islamic State," Dr Ingram said.
"We need to be conscious of the message that [their return] is sending to genuine victims of the group, if we're just going to bring these women who did join, but that's a generalisation, we have to treat it on a case by case basis."
A change in government response
In a statement, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said: "The Albanese government's overriding priority is the protection of Australians and Australia's national interests, informed by national security advice."
In 2019, the Coalition government repatriated eight children and grandchildren of dead IS militants.
Germany has since repatriated more than 90 of its citizens, including prosecuting one woman with aiding and abetting genocide for the enslavement and abuse of a Yazidi woman.
France has returned 86 and the United States has 27 and charged 10 with terrorism-related offences.
Kazakhstan has returned more than 600 of its nationals, according to the United Nations.
