A group of parents want to take legal action against the Dutch state for failing to stop their children going to Syria to join IS, news agency ANP says on Friday.

Lawyer Michael Ruperti told ANP the parents, some of whom come from Amsterdam and Leiden, had briefed the authorities fully about their children’s plans but officials failed to take action.

The parents say officials should have withdrawn their offspring’s passports as soon as they had been alerted or taken their children into preventative custody. Several of the jihadis have been killed.

Ruperti says the police now need to find out which government service failed in its duties.

The parents decided to take action after an international arrest warrant was issued for a 27-year-old Dutch woman who was heading for Syria. She was arrested on the Turkish-Syrian border.

The parents say the authorities should have taken similar steps when warned about their own children.