Legal bid to repatriate body of daughter killed in Syria

THE father of the first British woman to die fighting in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has launched a campaign to bring his daughter’s remains back to the UK.

Dirk Campbell’s daughter Anna travelled to Syria via Lebanon in 2017 to join Kurdish forces fighting in the north-west city of Afrin.

In March last year, Ms Campbell died after it is thought she was hit during Turkish airstrikes while fighting with an all-female brigade of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units. The 26-yearold was the eighth British citizen to die in the country but the first woman.

Mr Campbell, a musician from Lewes, East Sussex, has launched a legal campaign to bring his daughter’s body home from the now-turkish controlled area. He said his repeated appeals to the British and Turkish governments to repatriate Ms Campbell’s remains have failed, despite knowing the location of her body.

After instructing human rights lawyers Mccue & Partners, Mr Campbell is raising funds for his legal fees in order to make formal representations to the Turkish government and potentially take legal action against the country.

Mr Campbell said: “My meetings with the Foreign Office have proved fruitless despite promises to ‘do our best’. My MP has done nothing to help. I have been left with no option but to seek legal action.”

“It is an embarrassment to the UK and a disgrace and shame on Turkey that her body has been left to rot in the rubble of a ruined city.”