BRITISH officials are working on how to rescue children born to UK jihadi brides following the death of Shamima Begum’s baby son, Jeremy Hunt has revealed.
Amid a growing backlash the Foreign Secretary defended the decision not to send British officials into a Syrian refugee camp to save Ms Begum’s three week-old baby, whose UK citizenship remained.
The Foreign Secretary said the baby’s death was an “incredibly distressing and sad situation” but said it was too dangerous to dispatch officials to the war zone.
He added that government officials were at a greater risk than the numerous journalists who have managed to enter the refugee camp to interview her.
But Mr Hunt said he is working with Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt to find a way to rescue other children of British runaways stranded in Syria.
He told the Andrew Marr Show: “We have been looking at how we can get in touch with these children, how we can find a way to get them out. Sadly in this case, as we know, it wasn’t possible.”
His intervention came after it emerged Home Secretary Sajid Javid has stripped British citizenship from two more jihadi brides.
The Sunday Times reported that Reema Iqbal, 30, and her sister Zara, 28, had been barred from Britain on the basis that they have Pakistani heritage so they won’t be deemed stateless under international law.
The sisters have five boys under the age of eight between them.
The Home Office declined to comment on individual cases.
A spokesman said: “Any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”
Meanwhile the former head of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald accused Mr Javid of “moral cowardice of the worst sort” following the death of Ms Shegum’s son.
He attacked the Home Secretary for stripping her of British citizenship to further his own leadership ambitions.
Lord Macdonald told the Observer: “This was an abject decision by a home secretary apparently so intent on furthering his leadership ambitions that he has lost sight of sovereignty, treating the UK as a banana republic incapable of regulating its own citizens.”
Reuters
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