British jihadi bride Shamima Begum in plea to return to UK
British jihadi bride Shamima Begum gives birth in a refugee camp and makes new plea in TV interview to return to UK.
British jihadi bride Shamima Begum, who said she had no concerns about seeing severed heads in bins having fled to Islamic State, says people should feel sympathy for her and allow her to return home to London.
Ms Begum gave birth to a baby boy yesterday in Al-Hol camp in northern Syria, where she had fled as the Islamic State caliphate crumbles.
But the 19-year-old has appeared unrepentant for her choices, leaving her comfortable Bethnal Green, London, home as a 15-year-old in the company of two schoolfriends to join Islamic State.
Shamima Begum tells Sky News "people should have sympathy" for what she's been through.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 17, 2019
The IS bride says she was "just a housewife" and hopes for the sake of her child they will be allowed to return to the UK.
More on this interview here: https://t.co/dxlwiaQWL7 pic.twitter.com/uXmElso7id
In that time she has married a Dutch jihadi fighter, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, and had two other children who have died of malnourishment and illness in the past few months.
After being discovered in the camp by The Times, overnight Ms Begum gave an interview with Sky News in which she repeated that she was comfortable with Islamic State’s regime, including beheadings and executions.
She said: “Yeah, I knew about those things and I was okay with it. Because, you know, I started becoming religious just before I left. You know from what I heard, Islamically that is all allowed so I was okay with it.”
Ms Begum said living with the Islamic Sate was at first “nice”.
She added: “Then afterwards, things got harder, you know. When we lost Raqqa we had to keep moving and moving and moving. The situation got difficult.”
She said she only began to have second thoughts about living under Islamic State when her son died a few months ago.
“I realised I had to get out for the sake of my children — for the sake of my daughter and my baby. Yeah.” Her infant daughter subsequently died from illness.
Ms Begum said she had only ever been a housewife in Islamic State and should be allowed to return to her family.
“I think a lot of people should have, like, sympathy towards me for everything I’ve been through,” she said.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into when I left and I just was hoping that for the sake of me and my child, they could let me come back. Because I can’t live in this camp forever. It’s not really possible.”
She added: “The entire four years I stayed at home, took care of my husband, took care of my kids, I never did anything … I never made propaganda, I never encouraged people to come to Syria,” she said.
“They don’t really have proof that I did anything that is dangerous.”
A lawyer for the Begum family, Mohammed Akunjee, told Sky News that the family was upset that journalists had been able to find and have access to Ms Begum but that her family still hadn’t contacted her.
He criticised the media for interviewing Ms Begum when she had just a one-day-old child. He blamed serious safeguarding failures at her school, the police that failed to apply protocol and the local authorities for allowing their then 15-year-old daughter to be “groomed and taken over”.
Mr Akunjee said Ms Begum should face British justice and not mob rule. The case has created a severe backlash against Ms Begum and there is political divisions as to whether she should be given British assistance to return home.
Home Office minister in charge of security, Ben Wallace said British forces would not be put in danger in order to get her out of Syria, saying her “actions have consequences”.
The Home Secretary Sajid Javid said he would use all his available powers to prevent her return. However others, such as Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary said “we do have to be concerned about the health of that baby, we have to be concerned about her health too”. He says Ms Begum should return to the UK but on the understanding she was held to account for her behaviour so far.
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