British Isil-fighting daughter ‘left to rot’, claims father

A BRITISH woman who was killed fighting Isil will be “left to rot” on the battlefield where she died, her father has said, as he accused the Government of “back-pedalling”.

Anna Campbell, 26, who was the first British woman to die fighting with Kurdish forces in Syria, is believed to have been hit during Turkish air strikes in March while fighting with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).

Dirk Campbell, her father, said a meeting with Alistair Burt, minister of state for the Middle East, gave him little confidence of bringing her body home.

In an open letter to the Government last week, Mr Campbell claimed Turkish authorities had flouted international humanitarian law by not doing their duty in searching for the dead and preventing their bodies being “bespoiled”.

He said charities were prevented from getting to the site to assist, and as a result, his daughter’s body has still not been brought back to the UK.

The 67-year-old has since met officials after calling on the Government to do more to address the “atrocities” in Syria and to help him be reunited with his daughter.

Mr Campbell, of Lewes, East Sussex, said: “It is a scandalous state of affairs. I had hoped for a less equivocal response from the Foreign Office. It is just completely back-pedalling. They are not supporting the Kurds.”

Hester Campbell, his daughter, said the family had a “desolate feeling of futility,” adding: “We don’t want Anna to have died for nothing.”

Ruth Cadbury, Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth where another of Ms Campbell’s sisters lives, said in a statement released by the family that she was “disappointed” Mr Burt was “not prepared to commit the Government to challenging Turkey’s actions”.