Runaway girl’s mother: ‘Don’t cross the border...’
THE families of two of the teenage schoolgirls who have run away to become Jihadi brides last night issued an impassioned plea to them not to cross the border into Syria.
Police believe there is a still a chance that Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and an unnamed 15-year-old may not yet have crossed the border into Syria after flying to Istanbul last Tuesday.
‘Please don’t cross the border. Please come home to us. We are not mad at you, we love you,’ said Shamima’s parents. ‘ We understand you want to help those you believe are suffering in Syria. You can help from home, you don’t have to put yourself in danger.’
And Kadiza’s family pleaded: ‘ We cannot make sense of why you left home... we all love you dearly and the past four days have been a nightmare.
‘We miss you terribly, especially Mum, and things have not been the same without you.’
Police are hoping that big snow falls in Turkey will have thwarted the girls’ attempts to find their way to the war zone.
The three runaways attended school together in east London and are friends with another 15-year-old girl from the same school who fled to Syria in December. In London the community was coming to terms with the news as questions were raised about how they were able to leave so easily.
Abdul Samid, governor of Bethnal Green Academy, said: ‘I am 100% confident we did everything possible to safeguard the pupils at the school.’
Apu Miah, 27, a neighbour of Shamima’s family, said: ‘They are a nice family. The father is in Bangladesh and the mother is coping with the daughter going to Syria. She feels humiliated and does not want to show her face in public.’ Salman Farsi, spokesman for the East London Mosque, added: ‘The girls need to know that they have done nothing wrong. They have been manipulated.’
Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said: ‘ We need to make sure we counter these ideologies. This is like grooming, child exploitation, and in the worst case scenario they are potentially being used as weapons of war in those countries.’
The girls, described as ‘straight-A students’, flew to Istanbul without leaving any messages behind.