Jihadi bride Shamima Begum is just one of a total of 19 British women being held at a Syrian detention camp, it has emerged.
The commander at Al-Roj camp for ISIS women and children told The Mail on Sunday there are 19 British women and 35 children living there.
This is the first time a definite figure has emerged, and it is much higher than previous estimates.
One of the women – who travelled to Syria with her Porsche-driving barrister husband – has tearfully begged to be allowed to return to the UK.
But the UK Government has stripped the women in the camp of their British citizenship and is refusing to allow them to return from Syria due to national security fears.
Officials from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which runs the camp, have urged Britain to repatriate the women and children. One commander told the MoS: ‘We want the British Government to take their citizens and conduct trials in Britain. Their presence in the camp is a ticking time bomb, posing a danger to everyone.
Jihadi bride Wajda Rashid, 45, from Leeds has been a prisoner at Al-Roj camp in Syria for three years
Ms Rashid’s son Adam, 5, is one of 35 children living on the camp
‘Mothers are indoctrinating children with extremist ideologies, and many refuse to send them to school. Our attempt to encourage education backfires, as mothers divert their children to sharia courses instead.’
In her first-ever interview, Wajda Rashid, 45, from Leeds, said she regretted going to Syria with her husband Yasser Iqbal, 46, who left his life in the UK behind to take up arms with ISIS terrorists in 2015.
She is friends with Shamima Begum, 24, who last month lost her appeal to return to Britain. They have lived in the camp for about seven years.
Ms Begum left the UK for Syria in 2015 married a fighter with the IS jihadist group and had three children, none of whom survived.
In 2019, when Britain’s then Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship citing national security grounds, she argued she had been left de-facto stateless.
She previously said she had been ‘brainwashed’ and regretted her actions in Syria, and begged to be given a second chance in the UK. She added that depression and a need for purpose led to her being radicalised online.
The decision to revoke Ms Begum’s citizenship was ruled lawful by the Court of Appeal as she also had Bangladeshi nationality through her parents until her 21st birthday. She could still take her case to the UK Supreme Court.
Ms Rashid pleaded with Britain to let her come home for the sake of her seven-year-old son, Adam, and said she needs surgery for shrapnel injuries suffered in the conflict. ‘I just want England to take me back for my son.
Just take me back because of everything that has happened to us,’ she said. ‘I miss my family so much. My mum, my dad, my brothers. I miss them so much. And I just want to go back and live with them and never ever go out of the country ever. I am traumatised.’
The former teacher said that she had regretted travelling to Syria from the moment she arrived in 2015, saying: ‘The day I got here I was crying. I really want to go back because it’s hard for me to live here.’
Her husband is understood to be in a men’s prison in northern Syria after being captured. He used to be a barrister in Birmingham and previously boasted that he drove a silver Porsche Boxster and ‘was looking forward to saving up to buy a villa and a Lamborghini’ before he joined ISIS.
At the time, the Islamist terrorists controlled vast areas of Syria and Iraq. The couple lived in Raqqa, the terror group’s capital city, where their son was born in 2016. Ms Rashid said she was separated from her husband during fighting in Baghouz, which was ISIS’s last stronghold.
Shamima Begum (left) with Wajda Rashid (right). Living conditions at at Al-Roj are harsh, and there is no longer a fresh water supply after the camp was bombed by Turkish military last year
She uses crutches after her right arm and leg were hit by shrapnel from a bomb in Coalition air strikes. ‘I am part-paralysed – my leg and arm don’t work. I don’t get any help from physiotherapy,’ she said. ‘I need to take the shrapnel out because it hurts me so much. I want the Government to take me back, to hear what I’ve got to say.’
Other countries, including Canada and Germany, have allowed jihadi brides to return home. But the UK Government will not approve it on the basis that the women pose a terror risk.
Ms Rashid and her husband were stripped of their British citizenship in 2017, on the grounds that both were threats to national security. Her husband previously ranted in an audio recording obtained by the MoS that the UK was a ‘country of dogs’.
Living conditions at Al-Roj are harsh, and there is no longer a fresh water supply after the camp was bombed by the Turkish military last year.
A report by the charity War Child earlier this month estimated there were between 30 and 60 British children living in detention camps in Syria. To date, the UK is known to have repatriated ten children.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
