about how a father lost his daughter to the so-called islamic state you're watching the news remember to keep up with all the latest news and information go to our website it's d.w. dot com i'm told me a lot of things watching. the . 2 same. marvel comics started in 1039 they created a vast empire of superheroes with human weaknesses. have had their share of closures the moving story. starts march

d.w. . hi dad it's me you know there's no future for us here i don't have one single dollar. if there is a smuggler who got 10 women at a fair yesterday without any problems. it shatters any illusions you might. your own child would rather go join terrorists than stay with you. and even think it's cool for some life and some i thought i was

young i guess and wanted a bit of revolution muslim was sort of in. this film tells the story of a father i accompanied over a period of 4 years and his daughter. florence is pretty it's clear to us that she's not only some little girl who was groomed me i love that unfold around sure i was naive and ethan's on the she's also a perpetrator on. the story of 2 vastly different worlds. it was to get out of there as quickly as you can go. a story of life and death. sadly rather i'm waiting please dad please. in march 2015 mike messing's world was turned upside down his daughter had suddenly disappeared without a trace he then started receiving messages on his phone from a stranger.

job was a mere 3 months i couldn't understand what he was telling me a walk law but when i saw that tiny profile photo of him and clicked on it looked horrible as all your. concerned then saw that flag. that was like final. and good. his daughter leonora was 15 years old at the time her parents had separated some years earlier mike who runs a bakery in a small town in eastern germany had recently remarried. was that the reason for leonora's disappearance had she felt like a 3rd wheel didn't know. to those around her and she had seemed like

a typical teenager interested in boys and beauty products desperate for clues to help make sense of it all mike searched leonora's room he found her diary and was confronted with a parallel existence one dominated by islam and in which his daughter was wearing a headscarf. he found photos on her computer which showed her hidden transformation. mike hadn't noticed a thing and blamed himself. where is this you keep coming back to yourself and ask why for what process or for why more for for what is or. young girls in germany have been systematically recruited

supporters are searching social media for potential targets to vent off to girls are often married off while they're still minus and pushed to produce new fighters if they fall out of favor they become slaves so why are girls and young women from across europe choosing to go and live in this darkness scene for an agonizing 12 days mike heard nothing from leonora then finally he received a voice message little did the father know that soon he would be keeping his phone by his side at all times it would become the sole source of contact with his daughter. hi dad i'm trying to send you a voice memo that leaches you quickly. i'm doing really well we have a really big apartment here. that is that is decorated everything in purple of course. we don't have. which is here but these pillows you sit on. i'm also sending you photos of the president he gave me gold because. nora was talking about how

wedding aged just 15 she married an islamic state fighter this is the official wedding photo she was one of the man's 3 wives mike's layo was now living in another world in syria in the midst of a civil war. that really is world had been biking by a village of 200 people in the hearts mountains region of eastern germany. at this point mike approached me. i am a journalist and already had years of on the ground experience covering i-s. and had been to syria and iraq often we immediately had a good report but at that 1st meeting in 2015 we had little idea of how often we would speak and meet over the next years and every time we met one big question loomed why. and so for a 2nd she shut us out she left us without any opportunity to be part of her life.

she was a girl who went voluntarily to syria go on the low and welcome to the talk shop 2 and a half years after the u.s. withdrawal iraq is at risk of being plunged into chaos also here are a mass safe distance we might pinch also says to the pace at which a few 1000 jihadists a terrorizing an entire country designing their militias are over running around one 3rd of iraq and syria and setting up a ruthless regime of terror. and somewhere in this south declared caliphate was later nora gushing with pride over her husband who went by the name of me heard. me heard it was born martin lemke and was a welder in a mine in germany before joining i.a.s. where he reports. came to hold a senior position in i asked intelligence a fellow german i asked for a crude would later testify that instead of torturing people himself had others do

it for him leonora was getting acquainted with her new home rocca the capital of the i asked califf it she texted her dad about what she'd seen. us the roundabout was right outside leonora's home. by s. used such violent images as propaganda on the internet in order to recruit new people and intimidate opponents. in the weeks after leonora disappeared the police were informed and visited mike's home where they seized his daughter's computer. but there was little they could do. in my case heading to berlin to a counseling center called high out arabic for life it was set up to help families

whose children have signed up to islamist groups. there he met dozens of families in a similarly desperate situation and the center's director cloudier done she advised parents to talk to their children about everyday things in the hope that they'll get homesick. a fetus is and the crucial thing is that you realize you're not alone because you're not the only in germany whose daughter's runaway leonora appeared unaware of exactly what kind of place she was now living in me and i as in rocca laws and punishment what draconian me listening to western music was punished with whipping me leonora and her fellow wives managed to have their own little parties in secret. just like. leonora soon began to lose faith in i.r.s. she found her husband disgusting i asked brutal and was unhappy to be one of 3

wives. at the time or not now after around 2 months she seemed to realize for the 1st time that this wasn't everything she hoped for. and got out of the she admitted as much i said she wanted to come home. and wanted us to help her. when you're working and then it helps if you know people who know other people and. the people mike was referring to was our team we knew the other people smugglers some of whom had close ties to i-s. at 1st we were unsure whether journalists should get involved in such a way but after a lengthy discussions we decided we would but under the condition that mike alone would take all decisions our team would accompany him merely as observers a meeting was arranged in turkey when mike arrived we were already there.

smuggling people out of i asked territory was extremely dangerous especially when a woman was involved. mike met the smuggler in a hotel in southern turkey. we kept our distance while listening in mike to the negotiating. stuff and. i met with this was a smartly dressed guy. he said he had links to the nusra front. so basically. i just. like us by this or mike from the hamlet of pride and bach was having a cup of tea with 2 guys from al-qaeda. and think of the smoking around $100.00 cigarettes. but it's. credibly tense what it's like you're talking through interpreters. the smugglers set out a complex secret operation involving 3 cars and forged documents. mike was tempted to give them the go ahead straight away i want my kid back. it is and if that means

that afterwards i face prosecution for giving money to a terrorist organization i'd be happy to go to jail as long as my child is back home and. with that go ahead somewhere in syria a group of men set out for rucka. they had already smuggled people out of what was now the capital of i asked. that plan to get leonora was potentially a matter of life or death. because rocca the heart of i ask was teeming with militias patrolling the city seemingly at every street corner. shops or even often i asked her concretely whether she was up to it just said in her typically casual way sure no problem. leonora sent her father a current location and fight says of the surrounding area if caught doing best buy ins she could be sentenced to death. a lot of that was the plan. to

fake up alone or in a car where she would travel with a cover family as their daughter because. there were repeated problems coordinating a pick up with each failure the danger rose. where are they i'm waiting to know what is here please dabs leave it to pull. around a dozen such attempts failed to work out. the of a cog or as there was an hour or an hour and a half each day that were just crushing your nerves having to get the questions rightly repeating answers correctly it was nerve wracking you're so wound up start to put into words. but they decided not to give up.

lol. the thought of that was the last thing we heard or read from her directly. then silence for days there wasn't a single word from leonora instead they heard from her husband me had. gotten broke we were really afraid for a layer of calm kind of meddling and then we didn't hear anything nothing for over a week he wanted on the one issue. event the 2nd wife of martin

alias nihad got in touch. back in brighton by the mike and the rest of the family needed time before they could start believing the news. slowly it sank in that leonora was dead that she had been killed in a civil war that wasn't hers. 3 weeks after the news of her death we visited mike for the 1st time with the camera again . he told us he was trying to somehow get through the days that he hadn't made it through a night he had without were trying. thank you

distort your child is dead. and you phrased you should hold to get her out of there and you shove your sword. you have got the bomb from going to plant this tree through thought we were preparing her but we'll be saying farewell to a child. we'll have a place we can go which is symbolically her last resting place and board a ship and. we took stock of the last few months going over everything again and again. the family organized a memorial service so that everyone could say goodbye then suddenly a message arrived.

but was it really her my couldn't be sure so we asked questions to which only leonora would know the answers what had best childhood friends home looked like inside the names of her grandfather's ponies. the answers that were correct leonora was alive. even if she was still living under a terrorist regime islamiyah arabic for islamic state. and you want a taller man or woman young or old and. even slightly toying with the idea of going off to dodge all of that in. that's what i should be aware of what they're doing and.

this is as good they're making their family go through hell. leonora's family that hell continued every day every week every month mike was haunted by the question of how his daughter was and whether he would ever see her again. winter 20152016 syria people were being killed on a daily basis on all sides. of the. comb and they took an awful right now there is nothing we can do just wait we don't own a tourist industry that we were getting experienced in this. age of not giving up is the most important thing. sometimes you have lows. you have to carry on. but mike was

permanently on edge the constant flow of messages and news was like being on a hamster wheel that never stopped spinning. leonora contacted him reported that her husband me hard now had a slave a woman he bought and suddenly had came home yesterday sometime after midnight and said sorry bought myself a slave for $800.00 when i was like $100.00 is nothing it's how can somebody do that comes from a human being it's using his eighty's 30 years old and has 2 children so i don't know what to say. let's just so sorry for her her arms are blue no idea if not treat her well at all she's really starting from muscle x. there are reports of mass executions of women and girls being raped and sold into prostitution and of children being forcibly recruited for fighting for title it seems the displacement of these c.d.'s is deliberate people who are not children

slave to driven out of their villages with no water or food. bassman guards. it was this poor woman of 3 plus years 2 kids i think i'm pleased mercy of a dangerous man. how can a person change like that. because the question keeps bothering me mr shifty that he's grown up here and probably happily he went to kindergarten and high school a normal civilized person wouldn't buy himself a slave and. i'm so shocked. i want to help her it's like i want her to at least have a few ok days that's handed. to so sorry thank god. the woman was called la mia she wouldn't be an issue for leonora for very long because soon after this photo was used to offer her for sale back to her yes the

family. one year later in 2016 i drove to northern iraq i-s. free territory la mia had found refuge in a displaced persons camp here like been looking for her for months. i cautiously stepped into the room. i was still severely traumatized. me we communicated with the help of an interpreter. nobody could say how many men had literally owned her she was barely able to talk after a while i showed her a photo of leonora's husband. did he buy her. liver. it. does she remember his name. with us how did he treat or. so on the.

easily. and we then left la mia alone for the entire time we were there her children likewise barely said a word llambias husband was still missing she was living in her brother in law's tent. the family had to raise $24000.00 to secure her release money they didn't have. the army would spend another 3 years in this kurdish tent city since 2019 she and her children have been living in safety in canada and we've been told she's doing a little better. than a last night fight has began advancing on the terrace militias unofficial capital back out for. air raids on rocker in the autumn of 2017.

when. a short time later leonora left rocca and i asked lost control over the city. when mike heard the news he feared the worst for his daughter as so often before. that it's still you're sitting in or you can't do anything. you feel completely powerless. the one who try to distract yourself and not think about it too much through fear that will because there's nothing you can do with the most you just have to accept things as they come. in the.

meanwhile leonora was carrying on with her life she posted m. o. g.'s celebrating her 1st week of pregnancy. while leonora was still somewhere in syria i traveled to the liberated city of raka now little more than a wasteland of ruins and rubble i found the apartment where she used to live. in egypt in the mouth when she posted photos from morocco back then i spent ages searching the internet to find out exactly which building she was in. this was what was left of the stairwell leading to her apartment. leonora spent several months here and evidently made herself at home while just out

on the streets people were being locked in cages and i asked was publicly torturing and murdering. leonora and other i asked deaver to use one now on the run and being hunted down by the international coalition led by the united states. 2017. she was probably somewhere in the vicinity of the euphrates river in eastern syria

. while my continued to keep his bakery running leonora was trying to find a people smuggler to get her to turkey and out of the war. there's the smuggler who got 10 women out of here yesterday without any problems. ok ok use that chance get out of there as quickly as you can. and then the day actually arrived when they said they were setting off was. my dad it's me leo i'm at the waiting point and praying to allah that was so you chatter soon ok the spaniards in a few minutes time i'll be offline. monday. like i'm pretty anxious but i guess it has to work out. how much data stay strong don't cry. don't cry and then there were no more messages

maybe they really had said oh yeah and then our smuggler of choice contacted me. and he started this horrible. i was really nasty she's game is the wrong word in the things he said as there are loads of checkpoints were having to bribe so many people so we need more money you can write back a 100 times i haven't got any more he happens to be on. the ground so i build up this unbelievable pressure so what can you do. you walk around in circles going out of your mind. and just fish and you don't. think about it and drinking helps you know. that without i mean you're

a complete wreck because you know the next message they send could be. well. nothing good as it was going to say. and i didn't get them eventually they had me so desperate that i said fine i'm actually going to have to transfer the $8000.00 along so that they at least stay alive. but they weren't even able to tell me where to wire it to those of them as i do none the less you realize these guys really have to be nuts and you're just helpless. if it was.

it was so tough thought those few days were worse than the 4 years before that. it's difficult to describe the beast in your mind you're up on the ladder and the newest as above you think this is just too much it's not possible to do prisoner reach a point where you just can't take it anymore i can't do this to anyone anymore. it's so bad that you want to give up and give yourself up because you want an end to this misery and if i'm no longer alive then ok maybe leo will also die but then my family will have peace. i did miss the point to reach so i actually blocked all the number i just couldn't go on and fix the book to fix the problem. she told myself i wouldn't cry today i was broke. it was one of our darkest

hours just the words from. the 7 contacts knowing leonora might die. the mental strain from mike and his family back home and cry could simply go too big. for us when the next day or the day after i don't remember exactly leo contacted me it didn't work out we didn't even leave both through this how do you not just keel over. in autumn 2018 leonora was still on the run with her husband. with the war still raging around them she had a 2nd child maria also born prematurely. at rates artillery and ground offensives

that seem islamic state reduced to islamic village hello. hi dad it's me leo we're in the last well it's left we're surrounded we're on the only street that islamic state still controls so far he's. lost i don't know he's all are living on top of each other starving children are freezing to death. we are there no more going to get out there's no future for us here we don't have one single dollar. and seeing as we have absolutely nothing and often have nothing to eat we've decided to give ourselves up. want to go through going to be b. b. . with the dragon i knew it meant the radio syria was back on the air. after 4 years you build up your own protective armor after a few alterations from the transponder through. it was a voice message from martin. didn't sound too happy.

least talk to the government i'm willing to do anything and i was never a soldier i never killed anyone i'm willing to pass on any information i have. no there are trials in germany and i'm willing to help the government is a serious issue and it's important for us that the women and children arrive home in good health. i don't want to stay in a jail here in syria i have no problem going to jail in germany and serving my sentence there. i'm really afraid so. i don't want to get beaten up the whole time i have a heart condition and picked up an ammonia here we're all really sick. so the same men who tried to ruin your life 4 years ago are suddenly saying poor me. and please don't tell anyone about this message if someone here finds out that we want to get out we might end up getting killed in the recent so i should have to

move you to the. take along plenty to drink just get out of there and take care of yourself. in any 2900 more than 40000 people in the last enclave i ask surrendered. in germany all mike could do was wait for leonora to make it out on january 31st 2019 that wait was finally over. hi dad it's me leo just want to say that i've left i yes really happy that we made it. i had was picked up by the americans but all fine they've been really really good to us. even though i got up as usual at 130 quarter to 2 the same as usual check my phone and i saw i'd missed a whole lot of calls and once a messages friends had recognized the young woman in this video footage as leonora

agency reporters had met her in the desert. and because i want my my old life a long time ago and now i know that it wasn't a. little scene. of 2 minutes all but i was on my way to work. all week and then it finally went click. you go back over the last 4 years there were incredible amount of images going through your mind and i thought if you feel a lot of things you suppressed negative stuff too and you cry a little bit as well course and it's only then that you realize how much pressure you've been under because it became your daily life so you didn't really even register at all. suddenly. you feel yourself getting lighter and lighter and free and i got out of my car and i thought yes for us it's its over.

they can't anymore. leonora was detained in this camp at tent city outside i'll hole in northern syria together with 70000 others and a fierce debate erupted in germany over whether the country should take back those who'd gone to join i-s. didn't they pose a threat. we return to syria in march 29000 it had been 4 years since leonora had run away from home i wanted to finally meet her. many many times and in from her online chats be shooting the ones she last posted you sometimes get the impression that despite how long it's been at how much older she's become she still has this 90 about her and you wonder how that's possible. to feel it and even if it's not she's not 19 and she's been through such a loss she's been in a war being bombed out of her home seen all this awful violence and is still so

naive and really interesting to see how she is in person let me get my normal flag and i'm told while i was about to meet leonora mike in germany was looking forward to his daughter finally returning home although he did have doubts as at least i'm not really sure who all be welcoming our. 4 years of bias and propaganda have to have a new. earth and for that she was really young once you have to tell you she was seduced sure before but she was happy to be seduced on the phone that's also part of the truth through before i got to know. leonora a willing accomplice. had she now realized what she had done to her family and to people in syria and ultimately to herself too i wanted to know everything including what it was that made islamic state so appealing to her. islam why then

don't tend to. sort of in a lot of people in germany who are converting to islam and britain to. face and i ended up in this facebook group i was young i guess and i wanted a bit of revolution i was in a take stream stuff. maybe i was a coward because i ran away from home and thought this is a way to solve all my problems in one go i love my father. she told us she had distanced herself from my ass a long time ago but how did she feel about the things she had done had she really thought about the past 4 years had she confronted her deeds. everything changed their marriage wasn't the same life in general in syria was not for me i was no longer happy with my life. there were also a lot of problems within the family there and i just wanted to go home and i when that failed things got worse because i understood that i now had to live there

whether i wanted to or not. and because i try to escape once my own husband knew it too. i know. this is her husband me her w.r.c. a born martin limca. german prosecutors are preparing a case against him and issued an arrest warrant. when we met it seemed he was hoping for a pity if in fact i thought my card is from germany. it's tough you're. under a huge mental strain i mean a one man cell i don't see or hear anything. he told us he only worked in the technical department of i s intelligence but he never fought never murdered or tortured anyone nor ordered anyone to he insisted he was merely a peripheral figure despite having had a slave why did you buy

a slave. be talking with my lawyer. but i haven't done anything bad. she was in very poor health and we helped her but i never talked to her. about why did you buy a human being with 2 children and it is awful thing is she was doing really badly. and in islam you're rewarded for treating a slave well because ladies have rights. and. it's come to question. is this woman was really ill but as i said we helped her where we could. and i had no other intentions i already had a big family of course if we wanted to make money by her cheap fatten her. look if you want to provoke me no that's not true no no i don't need that money.

bought her an order to trade her. we had money problems all the time oh so martin bought her to make money of it knowing the egg only to make some money he said that her up nurse her have her take a shower and give her kids food make sure that she puts on weight so she's worth something that the lights go out in the car right must. leonora's account incriminated her husband but what about her own row german prosecutors are looking into pressing charges against leonora who's now 19 like her husband she suspected of having spied for islamic state intelligence and having supported a terrorist organization. do you ever work with the secret police passed on information to your husband. i heard that too it's just ridiculous. whether she committed a crime will be decided in the german courts in the eyes of her father she needs to

face up to her moral responsibility for her. having joined a terrorist group. the 3rd was that she's not only some little girl who was groomed for me is just as much a perpetrator you just have to face the reality is the. leonora seemed carefree as she talked is she naive or traumatized it was hard to tell she doesn't seem to have reflected on how her family were fairing kurdish intelligence officers then told us our time was up. to thank you for coming thanks to. leonora gave interviews to other reporters as well and recited passages from the koran. it seems she gave little thought to what impression this would make on people back home in her village. most people say she's fully veiled and singing muslims on this although it's not a song. that has learned nothing be doesn't belong here and see she's

dangerous. perhaps it would be more prudent for leonora to stay in a neighboring village away from the media frenzy expected to descend on pride. and there indeed appears to be a solution mike and cloudier dunster from the berlin counseling center met pastor marcus bloomer who's a friend of mike. take a little look around the place ah well that's great the pastor knows how people in the area think and he has experience dealing with individuals whose lives have gone through dramatic changes. the 1st thing we want is for them to have contact with their families and be the one from you know paul wellstone and to give leonora a place where she'll feel at home and safe with her children while still being independent. the german government still has to decide if and when leonora may come

home. will see. them off and if she does have to go to jail document for a reason. she's definitely going for a beer and a schnitzel with me like an oath of allegiance good. music can change lives these children from mexico are just learning that. to my excel overshadowed by poverty and family problems but in the orchestra they can leave that all outside and find hope for the future it's reasonable to.

believe that sadat. our clothes our lifestyle choices and fashion statements. waste water and pollute the environment. for goodness is designed to our of lazing new pads with garments made from plastic and paper planes down backstab snow tomorrow. cuts and eco friendly eco africa. 90 minutes d w. is the human race destroying itself. we are ruining the basic elements of our system we're using too much water. we're polluting. the earth is life. going to go for supplies will last forever but they won't play when the marine stuff starts march 20th

on w.'s. place. blame. blame blame blame blame blame. blame this is d.w. news live from berlin in the united states the super tuesday showdown millions have been casting ballots in florida team states holding democratic presidential primaries projections show moderate candidate joe biden opening up and lead over his rivals also coming up as the corona virus continues to spread around the world will meet up.