Statement by Foreign Minister of Germany Baerbock on the repatriation operation from north-east Syria

I am pleased that we were able to bring a further 27 German children and eight of their mothers back to Germany from the Roj camp in north-east Syria last night. I would like to thank everyone who worked on this for months and also took personal risks in the process – as well as our partners on the ground, especially the Kurdish autonomous administration in north-east Syria and our US partners, who once again provided us with logistical support.

The 27 children are, at the end of the day, victims of IS, and they have a right to a better future far from its deadly ideology, and also to live in security, as we would wish for our own children. The mothers must be held accountable for their actions. A number of them were taken into custody immediately after arriving in Germany.

Thanks to today’s operation, the majority of the German children whose mothers are willing to return to Germany have been brought to safety. There are now only a few special cases for which we are continuing to work on individual solutions.