Australian boy, 11, held in Syrian camp begs for flight home: ‘I want to feel safe’

Australian children held inside Syria's Roj detention camp wait at the gates for the van they hope will take them out, and take them home.

An Australian-born boy who has been held in the camp more than three years told Guardian Australia this week the children were desperate to go home.

"I just want to know how it will be, to feel normal, to go to school and make friends, and to go to the park and play," the 11-year-old said. "And most of all I want to know how it will feel to go to sleep and be safe.

"A lot of boys already went back to their country, living a normal life and going to school - why this can't happen to me?"

About 40 Australians - 10 women and 30 children - remain held within the Roj camp in north-east Syria, near the Iraqi border.

They are the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters: most have been held in the squalid detention camp more than four years. Conditions are "dire", the Red Cross says, and the security situation "extremely volatile".

The Guardian understands there are Australians, too, held inside al-Hol camp, south of Roj, far larger and considered significantly more dangerous.