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Germany plans trauma center for 'IS' rape victims

December 22, 2014

German Development Minister Gerd Müller has told a newspaper of the government's plans to create a care facility for the victims of "Islamic State" violence. Germany has the highest number of aslyum seekers in Europe.

https://p.dw.com/p/1E8bj
Jesiden in Flüchtlingslager Newroz 14.12.2014
Image: Reuters/M. Mohammed

German Development Minister Gerd Müller told the mass-circulation newspaper Bild on Monday that Berlin has plans to create a trauma center in Germany for the victims of mass rape carried out by "Islamic State" militants (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

Müller said while on a visit to Iraq he spoke to five young girls who had been captured by IS and raped. Three of them were pregnant as a result.

"We have to take care of such girls," Müller told the paper, saying that a care facility in Germany could serve at least 100 women and girls.

He did not provide a timetable for the project nor did he say where in Germany such a facility would be established.

Müller's statements came after a United Nations report revealed last month the extent of the crimes perpetrated by IS on the people living in the cities and towns they capture. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a document full of harrowing descriptions of massacres, torture, sexual enslavement and forced pregnancy.

Influx of asylum seekers bring right-leaning protests

Germany is Europe's top destination for asylum seekers. Around 230,000 asylum applications are expected in 2015, up from an initial estimate of 200,000.

The increase in the flow of asylum seekers has spawned populist a movement, often called PEGIDA ("Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West"), which has held demonstrations against what they see as the Islamization of Germany in cities like Bonn, Düsseldorf, and Kassel.

In Dresden, the group has held protests some thousands strong every Monday for weeks. The movement is often accompanied by counter demonstrators under the banner of No-PEGIDA.

es/pfd (AFP, epd)