After the second major repatriation of women and children from a Syrian camp for former fighters of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS), Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) expressed relief.

He was glad that 23 more German children from a camp in northeast Syria were able to return to Germany on Thursday night, Maas said.

The children are not to be blamed.

It is right to do everything to "enable them to live in security and in a good environment".

The mothers of the children would “have to answer to the criminal justice system for their actions”.

Christoph Ehrhardt

Correspondent for the Arab countries based in Beirut.

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Johannes Leithäuser

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Marlene Grunert

Editor in politics.

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Six of the alleged IS supporters were arrested on arrival in Frankfurt, three of them at the instigation of the Attorney General; they are now in custody. The three women are said to have traveled to Syria with their children between 2014 and 2015 and joined ISIS for a number of years. The Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses them, among other things, of membership in a terrorist organization; one of them is also said to have been an accessory to a crime against humanity. She is said to have monitored a Yazidi who was enslaved by the terrorist militia.

All women and children who were now brought back were at last in the Roj camp in northeast Syria; Before that, some of them had lived in the al-Hol prison camp, which was guarded by Kurdish fighters. It's notorious. Around 62,000 members of so-called IS families, most of them women and children, live in al-Hol under miserable conditions. IS fighters are being held captive in other locations. The Kurdish forces (loyal to the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan), who control the region, repeatedly sounded the alarm. They are primarily concerned with the risk that the residents of the camps pose. Murders are reported again and again, this year it should have been several dozen. Security guards are also repeatedly attacked. The suspicion is directed against IS jihadists,who have not given up their extremist ideology, terrorize and radicalize other inmates.

Jihadist echo chambers?

Western security agencies are also concerned that the detention centers and prisons in northeast Syria are becoming a jihadist echo chamber. The appeals of the Kurdish leadership to other countries to bring their own compatriots back largely go unheard. The German federal government has also been cautious so far, especially when it comes to male IS fighters. There is little prospect of a return soon. Last December, three mothers, their five children and seven orphans from the region were brought to Germany. At that time, the Foreign Office, which does not have a diplomatic mission in Syria, worked with Finland. At that time it was reported that of the roughly 1,000 German citizens who had joined the terrorist militia, around 30 were still men,50 women and 150 children in the region.

Denmark was also involved in the most recent return operation, which in turn flew three women and 14 children.

The repatriates are said to be people who have been classified as particularly vulnerable by the local authorities in north-eastern Syria.

In the case of the children, illnesses or the fact that custodians live in Germany were taken into account.

Maas thanked the contacts in the region on Thursday for their support, especially the Kurdish self-government in northeast Syria.