Teenager who travelled from London to Syria to join Isis says decision is ‘kind of heart-breaking’

Shamima Begum, the teenager who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, has described Home Office plans to strip her of citizenship as “kind of heart-breaking”.

Shamima Begum: will the plan to revoke her citizenship succeed? Read more

“I don’t know what to say,” she told ITV News. “I am not that shocked but I am a bit shocked. It’s a bit upsetting and frustrating. I feel like it’s a bit unjust on me and my son.”

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, wrote to her family informing them he had made an order revoking her citizenship. He said the fact Begum’s parents are of Bangladeshi heritage means she can apply for citizenship of that country – though Begum says she has never been there.

The ITV News security editor, Rohit Kachroo, showed her a copy of the letter at the Syria refugee camp where she is being held.

She said of the letter: “It’s kind of heart-breaking to read. My family made it sound like it would be a lot easier for me to come back to the UK when I was speaking to them in Baghouz. It’s kind of hard to swallow.

“I heard that other people are being sent back to Britain so I don’t know why my case is any different to other people, or is it just because I was on the news four years ago?” she said.

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“Another option I might try with my family is my husband is from Holland and he has family in Holland. Maybe I can ask for citizenship in Holland. If he gets sent back to prison in Holland I can just wait for him while he is in prison.”

Javid is facing condemnation from Labour over his move to remove British citizenship from Begum.

On Wednesday morning the solicitor for the Begum family, Tasnime Akunjee, said the home secretary’s actions were excessive because the government had allowed hundreds of Britons to return, some of whom were suspected of fighting for Isis. The teenager was not suspected of being an Isis fighter and has claimed she was a housewife while married to a suspected Isis fighter.

Akunjee said: “I am very disappointed in Sajid Javid’s decision to attempt to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship.

Profile Shamima Begum's journey into Isis Show Hide February 2015 At the age of 15, Shamima Begum flees her home in Bethnal Green, east London. She travels with schoolfriends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana. The three intend to meet another friend, Sharmeena Begum – no relation of Shamima – who had travelled to Syria in late 2014. CCTV footage shows the girls walking through Gatwick airport, where they boarded a flight to Turkey. There they are picked up by smugglers and taken across the border to an Isis base in northern Syria. Once there they move into a women’s house in Raqqa and apply to marry. July 2015 The families of the girls say that two of them have married Isis fighters, without disclosing which. They say they are distraught at the news. It later emerges that Begum had married 27-year-old Yago Riedijk, an Isis fighter from the Netherlands, 10 days after arriving in Raqqa. Soon afterwards she became pregnant with her first child, a daughter named Sarayah. July 2016 Abase marries an 18-year-old Australian jihadist, Abdullah Elmir. He was later reported by intelligence agencies to have been killed by a coalition airstrike. August 2016 Sultana’s family say that they believe she had been killed in an airstrike in Raqqa in May 2016. January 2017 Begum and her family flee Raqqa as Isis retreats and head south-east to the town of Mayadin. She has another child, a son called Jerah. Later, the family moves again as Isis is pushed back. June 2018 Begum sees her two surviving classmates, Sharmeena Begum and Abase, for the last time. Late 2018 Jerah dies, aged eight months, of malnutrition and an unknown illness. Her daughter dies soon after, aged one year and nine months. February 2019 Begum, who is heavily pregnant, gives an interview to the Times, in which she says that she should be allowed to return to the UK to raise her unborn third child. She gives birth a few days later. The Home Office tells her family that her citizenship will be revoked. March 2019 Jarrah, Begum's new born son, dies in a Syrian refugee camp. The child was three weeks old.

Photograph: POOL New/X80003

“Home office minister Ben Wallace confirmed just last year that an estimated 400 Britons had returned to the UK from the Middle East having fought for groups like Isis. How Javid thinks that it is proportionate to allow such fighters to return whilst assessing it necessary to strip a young woman with a child of her citizenship is beyond me.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said it would be a failure of the UK’s security obligations and breach of human rights law if the government is proposing to make Begum stateless, arguing her potential citizenship rights elsewhere are “entirely irrelevant”.

Her comments add to criticism from the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats over Javid’s decision, which is likely to face a

legal challenge from Begum’s family.

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Abbott said: “Whenever there are reasonable grounds to suspect that someone who is entitled to return to this country has either committed or facilitated acts of terrorism, they should be fully investigated and where appropriate prosecuted. This does not appear to be the case here.

“If the government is proposing to make Shamima Begum stateless it is not just a breach of international human rights law but is a failure to meet our security obligations to the international community.”

Potential citizenship rights elsewhere are entirely irrelevant. Our

fundamental freedoms do not need to be compromised; they are perfectly compatible with our safety.”