Missing Syria girls’ families slam police over letter

The families of three London schoolgirls feared to have fled to Syria to become jihadi brides have accused the Metropolitan Police of failing to pass on a crucial letter. They say a letter from the force requesting to interview the girls in relation to a classmate who ran off to Syria last year should have been handed directly to the families. However, the letters were hidden by the girls in their school textbooks and their families never saw them.

We wouldn’t have been here today doing this if we’d got that letter and known what was going on.

Halima Khanom, sister of Kadiza Sultana

Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Amira Abase, who attended Bethnal Green Academy in east London, sparked a police hunt after they flew to Istanbul from Gatwick Airport last month and are now believed to be in Syria. Abase Hussein, the father of Amira, insisted that if he had seen the police letter he would have talked his daughter out of leaving and taken away her passport. The girls were spoken to in December 2014 as part of the routine inquiry by officers investigating the disappearance of their friend. Scotland Yard confirmed that it sent letters out to the three girls after their friend disappeared in December and that they were also spoken to by officers as part of a “routine inquiry”.

The Metropolitan Police Service has been engaged with staff at the girls’ school since December 2014 as part of the routine inquiry. There was nothing to suggest at the time that the girls themselves were at risk.

A Metropolitan Police statement

World missing girls