Rescuing Begum's baby would have been too dangerous, says Hunt

The foreign secretary has said it was too dangerous to send British officials to rescue Shamima Begum’s baby son from Syria, and she knew she would not be able to rely on British consular assistance when she went to Isis-held territory.

Jeremy Hunt, in referring to the 19-year-old who was stripped of her citizenship on the orders of the home secretary, Sajid Javid, gave the first reaction by a senior government figure since it emerged that Begum’s son had died in a Syrian camp.

However, Hunt appeared to signal a change of policy when he said the government was now looking at ways of contacting and removing British children from the camps.

The foreign secretary told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that Begum “chose to leave a free country to join a terrorist organisation and we have to think about the safety of British officials that I would send into that war zone as a representative of the government”.

Challenged as to why officials could not have gone to rescue the child from a camp where the press have gone to interview Begum and others, Hunt said journalists had “some protection” but added: “Sending a British government official into a war zone in a situation where you are getting advice that those officials’ lives may be put at risk is a very different matter.”

Hunt said earlier: “Shamima knew, when she made the decision to join Daesh, she was going into a country where there was no embassy. There was no consular assistance. And I’m afraid those decisions, awful though it is, do have consequences.”

He said the foreign office was now working with the Department for International Development on ways of contacting and removing British children in the camps.

Amid reports that two more British women who are being held in Syrian camps with their young children have had their citizenship revoked, there was continued silence on the controversy from the home secretary, Sajid Javid, who faces increasing criticism over the case of Begum.

The other women who have had their British citizenship removed were named by the Sunday Times as two sisters, Reema Iqbal, 30, and Zara Iqbal, 28, who are said to have five sons under the age of eight between them and have been widowed after their husbands died fighting for Islamic State.

The sisters, from Canning Town in east London, are believed to be living in separate Syrian camps, where tens of thousands of people have have flocked amid the disintegration of the “Isis caliphate”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individual cases. Any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

Javid, during a weekend of criticism, was accused of moral cowardice and “treating the UK as a banana republic” in pursuit of his leadership ambitions after the death of Jarrah, Begum’s son.

A Church of England bishop and a former director of public prosecutions criticised the home secretary as demand grew for Javid to review his decision, which left Begum stateless with her child in legal limbo.

Begum, from Bethnal Green, east London, was 15 when she and two other schoolgirls went to join Isis in February 2015. She gave birth in a Syrian refugee camp last month. She had having already lost two children.

News that a third child had now died has left her relatives in London distraught. The Begum family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, said: “They are utterly crushed and despondent at the moment.”

Javid’s decision to strip the teenager of citizenship triggered a debate about whether she should be allowed to return and raised questions about the legality of his decision.

The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, tweeted: “It is against international law to make someone stateless, and now an innocent child has died as a result of a British woman being stripped of her citizenship. This is callous and inhumane.”

Reema Iqbal told Sky News: “I don’t trust anyone. I’m sorry. I’ve been burned before.”

Iqbal was quoted earlier this year in the Daily Telegraph, which identified her as one of a number of British women who wanted to return. “The security services came to speak to me and I was honest, I told them my whole story so now it’s up to them to judge,” she said.

(THE GUARDIAN)