The Federal Government has repatriated several German nationals from north-eastern Syria. A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed this in Berlin on Wednesday. The Federal Criminal Police Office was involved in the repatriation. The ministry did not give further details, citing personal rights and the protection of minors, among other reasons.
Earlier, “Spiegel” and “Bild” had reported on the repatriation of suspected German female supporters of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) and their children from Syria. According to the report, the four women and several children had been detained in Kurdish prison camps for years. The Federal Public Prosecutor and other public prosecutors’ offices are investigating the women on suspicion of membership in a terrorist organisation.
According to information from security circles, their transfer to Germany will take place on a US Air Force transport plane via an air base in Kuwait, according to the “Spiegel” report. According to the report, the plane is expected to arrive in Frankfurt am Main in the evening.
According to “Spiegel”, there is also a 20-year-old man on board the plane. He had been abducted to the IS by his mother when he was a teenager. In his case, the Federal Government is deviating for the first time from its previous policy of only returning women and children to Germany. The Federal Public Prosecutor is also conducting terror proceedings against him.
The airlift is the sixth repatriation operation to date. On the first flight in summer 2019, only orphans and sick children of IS supporters were brought from a camp in northern Syria to Germany. Several flights with women and children followed later. According to information from the news magazine “Der Spiegel”, a total of 40 German IS supporters are still in detention camps or prisons in northern Syria. More than two thirds of them are men.