24 March, 2016. 16:15

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

A traumatised and stateless Australian-based Syrian refugee has today assured her host, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, that she is not too keen on joining or even sympathising with the terrorist organisation that took everything she has ever known away from her.

“I heard Mr Turnbull’s comments that suggested people should be wary of refugees as they might be ISIS-affiliated,” said Thuyraya al-Din, a widowed mother of three children who was very close to being killed by ISIS herself.

“I just want to assure him that my three children and I are not too keen on ISIS,” she said.

“Neither was their father that was killed by ISIS.”

Last night, Mr Turnbull used a speech at the Lowy Institute to warn the increasingly Islamophobic Australian public that the Islamic State terrorist group is using the Syrian refugee situation to get extremists into Europe.

“ISIL is using the refugee crisis to send operatives into Europe,” said Turnbull, who’s comments were echoed across the front page of every single NewsCorp publication in Australia this morning.

The extremely busy Belgium Ambassador to Australia, Jean-Luc Bodson, has since found the time to caution Turnbull against linking the issue with the deadly attacks in his homeland this week.

“It’s dangerous because it’s precisely what ISIS wants — that we would make a confusion between terrorism and migrants and between terrorism and Islam,” he said.

It is believed that there is currently upwards of 6 million dispossessed refugees currently still in Syria, with a further 4.8 million Syrian refugees outside the borders. The crisis is a result of the once stable middle eastern nation experiencing the rise of a horrific regime, which saw thousands of Westerners arrive in the country to join the ranks of ISIS.

Of the approximately 11 million Syrian refugees in the world, the 28-year-old Thuyraya and her three children represent four of the 28 000 refugees that have been offered protection in Australia.

She says she can understand the hysteria surrounding the possibility of ISIS “sleeper cells” arriving Down Under, but says it is a concern that might be best left in the hands of intelligence agencies and the immigration department, as opposed to Daily Telegraph readers.

“Please. Do as much processing and security checks as you want. Just don’t accuse me of being one of them,”

“I didn’t travel eight weeks at sea and get ping-ponged around the world in freight aircraft, only to keep in touch with the people that caused all of this”