Father accuses UK of ignoring body of daughter in Syria
The father of a young British woman killed on the battlefield in Syria six weeks ago has accused Britain’s Foreign Office of doing little to help retrieve her body so it could avoid damaging the UK’s relationship with Turkey.
“They have said their remit is very limited and that they have little influence in the matter. Basically, they don’t want to tread on the toes of anybody or affect Britain’s relationship with Turkey,” Dirk Campbell told yesterday’s edition of The Times.
Anna Campbell, 26, died in an air strike during an offensive by Turkish forces against Syrian rebels on March 15.
Although Turkish-backed forces secured the area within days they have not returned Campbell’s body, which is believed to lie in the rubble of the house in which she died. Mr Campbell said the family’s pleadings had been met with a lack of action at the Foreign Office.
Yesterday, a Foreign Office spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
Campbell, from East Sussex, joined an all-female Kurdish unit and reportedly died while travelling in a convoy struck by a Turkish missile.
She was one of an estimated 100 British people to join Kurdish forces fighting ISIS. She is believed to be the first British woman to have died in Syria while volunteering with the US-backed Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) fighters, which has about 15,000 fighters.
Mr Campbell has asked for a meeting with UK Middle East Minister Alistair Burt to ask whether he is “happy” his daughter’s body is still in Syria. Mr Campbell also plans to raise questions about British weapons sold to Turkey for use against Kurdish fighters.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not updated the family in a month, he said. Mr Campbell has been putting pressure on the UK through media interviews and Twitter posts to no avail.
“The FCO won’t have done anything specific,” Mr Campbell said. “They’ve told me they can’t get involved in anything political. There’s huge inertia over the case.”
The International Red Cross has said the area is dangerous and that they cannot reach Campbell’s body.
The former student at Sheffield University worked as a plumber in Bristol and became interested in the Kurdish cause. Campbell travelled to Syria in May last year to join the Kurdish fight and is thought to have spent her first few months fighting in Deir Ezzor.
When Turkey began a major offensive against the Kurds along the northern Syrian border in January, many Kurdish fighters moved to the Afrin front. British volunteers, including Campbell, are believed to have joined them.
“After the attack on Afrin she insisted on being sent there,” Nisrin Abdallah, a YPJ spokeswoman, told AFP.
At the time of her death, Mr Campbell told the BBC: “She wanted to create a better world, and she would do everything in her power to do that.
“I told her of course that she was putting her life in danger, which she knew full well she was doing. I feel I should have done more to persuade her to come back but she was completely adamant.”
Mr Campbell said his daughter’s Kurdish comrades tried to prevent her from going to Afrin.
“With fair hair and blue eyes they knew she would stand out but she dyed her hair black and persuaded them to let her go,” he said.
“I contacted my MP Maria Caulfield as soon as I knew she was in danger from the Turkish bombardment.
“I emailed my MP and said, ‘my daughter is in danger, you have to get on to the Foreign Office and get them to put pressure on Turkey to stop’.”
Campbell is the eighth British citizen to die while fighting for the group. YPJ commander and spokeswoman Nesrin Abdullah described her death as a “great loss”.
“Campbell’s martyrdom is a great loss to us because with her international soul, her revolutionary spirit, which demonstrated the power of women, she expressed her will in all her actions,” Ms Abdullah said in a statement.
“On behalf of the Women’s Defence Units YPJ, we express our deepest condolences to her family and we promise to follow the path she took up. We will represent her in the entirety of our struggles.”
Syria’s civil war has entered its eighth year, with heavy fighting around Afrin and in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
Turkey and allied Syrian rebels began their assault on the Afrin region on January 20, seizing most of the canton before capturing its urban centre in March.
Up to 250,000 civilians were reported to have fled Afrin in March after Turkish-backed fighters took the surrounding region and all but encircled the city.
Dirk Campbell has asked for a meeting with UK’s Middle East Minister to ask whether he is happy that his daughter’s body is still in Syria