German wife of IS fighter to be repatriated

In the first such ruling in the country, a Berlin court has ruled that the government must repatriate the German wife of a suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighter and her three children. According to a BBC News report, the court said the children would suffer if they remained in the al-Hol refugee camp in Syria. The case came about because the woman's family sued the Foreign Ministry after officials had refused to help her return to Germany. Until now Germany had been prepared to allow some of the children to travel to Germany without their mothers, fearing that the women might have been radicalised and could pose a danger to German society. In this case, the court explained that ‘inaction’ meant the three children would be faced with ‘serious, unreasonable and unavoidable disadvantages’. The children are eight, seven and two-years-old. Dozens of German wives of suspected IS fighters and at least 100 children remain in Syrian refugee camps, allegedly living in terrible conditions.