SHOULD SHE BE ALLOWED TO COME HOME?

After she lost her legal case over British citizenship, we look at what led Shamima Begum to join IS and why her pleas have left a nation divided

- MISHAAL KHAN

It was an ordinary Tuesday in February 2015 when 15-year-old Shamima Begum and her friends Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, told their parents they were going out for the day. Instead, the girls, described as straight A* students studying for GCSEs at Bethnal Green Academy, made their way to Gatwick Airport and boarded a plane to Turkey. By the time UK authorities realised what had happened, it was too late. The girls later entered Syria.

It was believed they had travelled to Syria with the intention of joining Islamic State. Their concerned families made emotional pleas for them to get in touch. Shamima’s family couldn’t understand what had made the seemingly ordinary teenage girl become involved with a terrorist group. ‘She was into any normal teenage things,’ Shamima’s sister Sahima said. ‘She used to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians and stuff like that, so there was nothing that indicated she was radicalised in any way.’ But public opinion on the teens was divided.

For many, the girls – minors under UK law – were vulnerable, having been groomed online and trafficked to IS-controlled Syria. But for others, Shamima and her friends were nothing more than terrorist sympathisers, a threat to national security.

Just days after her arrival, Shamima was reportedly married to Yago Riedijk, now 27, a Dutch national and IS fighter. But it was another four years before Shamima was back in the headlines.

By now, she was 19 and living in a refugee camp in northern Syria. She had last seen her husband a month earlier, when he had surrendered and was captured, and she’d been moved to the camp.