Shamima Begum: Call for Home Office to show ‘mercy’ for IS bride after her child's death

Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she left the UK in 2015, made headlines last month after saying that she wanted to return to her home, as the self-styled caliphate collapsed. 

The IS bride, who was pregnant at the time, was found in a camp in Syria by journalists. 

She told them that she wanted to come back to the UK for the sake of her unborn child, however the Home Secretary Sajid Javid later announced that she had been stripped of her British citizenship.

On Friday it was announced that Begum’s son, who had been born in February, had died. 

Sky News have reported today that her family have written to the Home Office asking them to reconsider the decision to strip her of her citizenship. 

According to the broadcaster, the letter says: ‘We write specifically on behalf of Mrs Begum, Shamima Begum's mother to ask you to reconsider your previous decision dated 19 February 2019 to deprive her daughter Begum of her British citizenship...

‘Ms Begum requests this reconsideration, as an act of mercy, on the basis of the following new information, namely the death of her new-born son.’ 

Jeremy Hunt has insisted officials are working on how to rescue British children born to Islamic State runaways after the death of Shamima Begum's baby in a Syrian camp.

The Foreign Secretary's defence came on Sunday after it was reported that two further women married into the terror group have been stripped of their UK citizenship while being held in detention camps with their children.

Ms Begum, who fled east London to join the cult aged 15, had pleaded to return to Britain with her boy after already losing two children, but the Home Secretary revoked her passport.

He has faced growing criticism over the move after her three-week-old son died in a camp last week, with his Labour counterpart Diane Abbott calling the death a ‘stain on the conscience of this Government’.