UK sisters feared joined IS with their 9 children

London

 Three sisters from Bradford in England are feared to have travelled to Syria with their nine children to join IS on their way back from a pilgrimage, a lawyer for the children's parents said Monday.

 The family, from Bradford in northern England, went missing after travelling to Medina in Saudi Arabia for an Islamic pilgrimage.

 Sisters Sugra Dawood, 34, Zohra Dawood, 33, and Khadija Dawood, 30, travelled to Medina with their children, aged three to 15, on May 28.

They were due to return to Bradford on Thursday, but they broke off all contact with their family back in Britain two days earlier.

 Preliminary inquiries suggest at least 10 members of the family boarded a flight from Medina to Istanbul -- a commonly used route into Syria.

 There are no details of an eight-year-old and a five-year-old member of the party boarding the same flight.

 Balaal Khan, a lawyer for the children's fathers, said it is understood the sisters have a relative fighting for either Islamic State or another extremist group in Syria, and it is feared they have met up with him.

 "The fathers are distraught, they feel helpless and they don't know what to do. They want the children out of harm's way," he said.