Germany: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution expects IS returnees - one third are women

Lower Saxony's head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Bernhard Witthaut, assumes that more IS supporters will return to Germany in the near future.

Hanover - For Lower Saxony alone he is assuming about 18 potential returnees, about a third of them women, Witthaut told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. He warned that the cooperation of the authorities in Germany in matters of returnees must improve. "There is no overall concept of the responsible foreign office in the direction of the federal states," said the head of the Protection of the Constitution.

Most recently, Germany had flown eight women with a total of 23 children from Syria. The mothers are said to have joined the IS terrorist organization at the time. Three of them were arrested directly at the Frankfurt airport.

Witthaut said: "Close psychological care for the children is urgently needed. It is not known exactly whether and how severely the children are traumatized." Germany should take a role model here from the Netherlands, which accompanies the offspring of IS returnees very closely.

So far the procedure nationwide is "rather inconsistent. That should change, a coordinated common procedure is needed here."

Source: Der Newsticker