D. W. Hi dad its me you know theres no future for us here i dont 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 its 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 its clear to us that shes not only some little girl who was groomed me i love that unfold around sure i was naive and ethans on the shes 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 im waiting please dad please. In march 2015 mike messings 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 couldnt 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 leonoras disappearance had she felt like a 3rd wheel didnt 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 leonoras 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 hadnt 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 theyre 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 im trying to send you a voice memo that leaches you quickly. Im doing really well we have a really big apartment here. That is that is decorated everything in purple of course. We dont have. Which is here but these pillows you sit on. Im 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 mans 3 wives mikes 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 is. 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 shed seen. Us the roundabout was right outside leonoras 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 mikes home where they seized his daughters 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 centers director cloudier done she advised parents to talk to their children about everyday things in the hope that theyll get homesick. A fetus is and the crucial thing is that you realize youre not alone because youre not the only in germany whose daughters 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 wasnt 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 youre 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 is. 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 alqaeda. And think of the smoking around 100. 00 cigarettes. But its. Credibly tense what its like youre 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 id 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 im 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 youre 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 wasnt 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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 hadnt 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 well be saying farewell to a child. Well 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 couldnt 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 grandfathers 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. Thats what i should be aware of what theyre doing and. This is as good theyre making their family go through hell. Leonoras 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 dont 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 its how can somebody do that comes from a human being its using his eightys 30 years old and has 2 children so i dont know what to say. Lets just so sorry for her her arms are blue no idea if not treat her well at all shes 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 im pleased mercy of a dangerous man. How can a person change like that. Because the question keeps bothering me mr shifty that hes grown up here and probably happily he went to kindergarten and high school a normal civilized person wouldnt buy himself a slave and. Im so shocked. I want to help her its like i want her to at least have a few ok days thats handed. To so sorry thank god. The woman was called la mia she wouldnt 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 is. 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 leonoras 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 laws tent. The family had to raise 24000. 00 to secure her release money they didnt 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 weve been told shes 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 its still youre sitting in or you cant 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 theres 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. Theres 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 its me leo im at the waiting point and praying to allah that was so you chatter soon ok the spaniards in a few minutes time ill be offline. Monday. Like im pretty anxious but i guess it has to work out. How much data stay strong dont cry. Dont 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 shes 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 havent 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 dont. Think about it and drinking helps you know. That without i mean youre a complete wreck because you know the next message they send could be. Well. Nothing good as it was going to say. And i didnt get them eventually they had me so desperate that i said fine im actually going to have to transfer the 8000. 00 along so that they at least stay alive. But they werent 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 youre just helpless. If it was. It was so tough thought those few days were worse than the 4 years before that. Its difficult to describe the beast in your mind youre up on the ladder and the newest as above you think this is just too much its not possible to do prisoner reach a point where you just cant take it anymore i cant do this to anyone anymore. Its so bad that you want to give up and give yourself up because you want an end to this misery and if im 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 couldnt go on and fix the book to fix the problem. She told myself i wouldnt 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 dont remember exactly leo contacted me it didnt work out we didnt 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 its me leo were in the last well its left were surrounded were on the only street that Islamic State still controls so far hes. Lost i dont know hes all are living on top of each other starving children are freezing to death. We are there no more going to get out theres no future for us here we dont have one single dollar. And seeing as we have absolutely nothing and often have nothing to eat weve 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. Didnt sound too happy. Least talk to the government im willing to do anything and i was never a soldier i never killed anyone im willing to pass on any information i have. No there are trials in germany and im willing to help the government is a serious issue and its important for us that