Former IS fighters in the Philippines | DW Documentary

Muslim separatists in the Philippines took control of the city of Marawi and held it for five months in 2017. The army of the mainly Christian country fought hard to oust them. Now, former Islamic State fighters are recanting.
At a time when the so-called Islamic State (IS) was rapidly losing ground in Iraq and Syria, IS fighters took Marawi, the largest Muslim city on the Philippine island of Mindanao. To regain the territory, the Philippine army had to engage in fierce house-to-house fighting with high casualties on both sides and among civilians as well. Whole quarters of the city still remain in ruins. Two years later, 1600 former Philippine IS fighters surrendered their weapons and returned home full of remorse. The Philippine state is accepting them, but they have to explain why they wanted to fight for IS in the first place. Teenagers, some of them not more than children, and even entire families went over to the other side, driven mainly by grinding poverty and ignorance. Now they dream of new life and hope for forgiveness from their compatriots.
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