Another German youth center is at the center of allegations of a cover-up after the family of a 14-year-old girl claimed officials failed to act properly following her alleged migrant gang rape in Lower Saxony.
The alleged attack took place in June 2025 at the “JuZe” youth center in Gnarrenburg, a municipality in the district of Rotenburg. According to ZDF’s Frontal program, three teenagers are accused of assaulting the girl, filming the incident, and distributing the video.
The suspects are minors with Dutch, Syrian, and Iranian citizenship, according to reports. The case has now been passed to the local public prosecutor’s office, where authorities will decide whether charges will be brought.
The girl’s family says they were not told about the allegations by the youth center, the municipality, or staff connected to the facility. Instead, they say they only discovered what had happened roughly six weeks later, after finding the video on the girl’s mobile phone.
According to ZDF, the girl and a friend allegedly contacted a staff member at the youth center a few days after the incident, but the family claims no action was taken.
The parents told ZDF Frontal, “The mayor admitted to us in a conversation that he had been informed about the incident and the video by his staff member. However, he did not file a report – which is completely incomprehensible to us.”
Gnarrenburg Mayor Marc Breitenfeld declined an interview with ZDF and refused to answer any questions, citing the ongoing investigation. In a written statement, he said the municipality had taken the matter seriously.
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— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 11, 2026“When parents feel their child has been harmed, it is an extremely serious situation that we as a community take very seriously. Therefore, we spoke with the parents the day after the allegations came to light and offered our full support,” Breitenfeld said.
He added that “all information available to the municipality was immediately made available to the responsible investigating authorities.”
The girl’s godmother, Sandra Grotheer, told the broadcaster that the family had grave concerns about how the case had been handled.
“We have serious doubts that the reporting procedures were followed. It certainly looks to us like this was meant to be covered up,” she said.
The case has drawn comparisons with another recent scandal in Berlin-Neukölln, where officials were accused of failing to properly escalate a sexual assault case involving a youth facility and suspects with a migration background.
That case centers on a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly raped in November last year by a teenage suspect at a youth center. Months later, she is said to have been sexually assaulted again, this time by a group of up to eight Muslim teens in a secluded room inside the facility.
There had been previous reports detailing a culture of abuse that had formed in the facility, where for months, there had been unwanted embraces, girls having their breasts and buttocks touched without consent, and being pulled onto boys’ laps.
In March, a sworn affidavit from employees of a neighboring facility was submitted to Berlin authorities, alleging that suspects were not reported to police because staff feared contributing to the stigmatization of “Muslim boys.”
It read, “Rape by a male visitor to the Wutzkyallee youth center. We also reported that the victim stated that videos of the crimes were made by the group of perpetrators, with whom the victim is regularly blackmailed. The group of perpetrators also attempts to persuade the victim’s younger sister to meet them.
“In this context, we informed the social services coordinator that a report must be filed. The social services coordinator refrained from doing so, as she feared the marginalization of the group of perpetrators. In essence, she stated that the Muslim boys are already sufficiently in the sights of the police and that she wants to prevent a general suspicion.”
