Families of London girls bound for Syria beg them to come home

Families of two of the three London teenage girls believed to be on their way to Syria to join the Islamic State are asking their daughters to return home. UK schoolgirls Begum, 15, Sultana, 16, and a third girl whose family chose to withhold her name left their homes Tuesday morning and boarded a Turkish Airlines flight from Gatwick Airport to Istanbul. All three are students at London’s Bethnal Green Academy and friends with another girl who reportedly ran away to Syria in December. They are believed to be making their way to Syria to take part in conflict.

We all love you dearly and the last four days have been a complete nightmare. We would like to emphasize that we are not angry with you and you have not done anything wrong, we just want you all to return home, safe and sound.

Family of UK schoolgirl Kadiz Sultnana, 16, who has allegedly left home for Syria

On Friday, UK police raised an alert and said that if the three girls can be found while they are still in Turkey, they’ll have a better chance of getting home safely.The flight of the three girls has heightened concerns, especially in Europe, over the number of young people making their way to the Middle East to join a radical cause. In September, the CIA estimated that more than 2,000 Westerners were fighting for the Islamic State in Syria – a number that has only risen since. France has the lion’s share of European youths who have left to join one jihad or another; the last count was at about 1,000 people, most between the ages of 18 and 29.

It is an extremely dangerous place and we have seen reports of what life is like for them and how restricted their lives become, the choice of returning home from Syria is often taken away from those under the control of Islamic State, leaving their families … devastated and with very few options to secure their safe return.

Commander Richard Walton of London’s Counter Terrorism Command

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