Shamima Begum says she understands public anger but is ‘not a bad person’ | Shamima Begum

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Shamima Begum, who left Britain to join Islamic State as a schoolboy in 2015, said she understands the public anger towards her but insists she is “not the person they think I am”.

Begum, who was 15 when she left her home in east London to join ISIS with her school friends Kadizha Sultana, 15, and Amira Abbasi, 16, tells the story of joining the terrorist group and life in a refugee camp at 10.-Part podcast BBC, The story of Shamima Begum.

Begum was found in a refugee camp in 2019, stripped of her British citizenship and banned from entering Britain. She said she knew the public viewed her “as dangerous, a danger, a potential danger to them, their safety, their way of living,” but added, “I’m not that person they think I am.”

The 23-year-old, who had three children in Syria, all of whom died, now lives in the Al-Roj camp in northern Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which she described in the podcast as “worse than a prison”.

She told journalist Josh Baker in the Syrian camp: “I feel like this is worse than a prison I think because at least with prison sentences, you know there will be an end but here you don’t know if there will be an end.”

Begum has appealed the UK government’s decision to strip her of her citizenship in the hope that she will be allowed to return to Britain. In November last year, the court was informed that she was most likely a victim of child trafficking and sexual exploitation. The Home Office has argued that people trafficked into Syria who become radicalized still pose national security threats as they may be insensitive after exposure to extreme violence.

She is “not a bad person,” Begum told the podcast, adding, “I am so much more than Isis and I am so much more than everything I’ve been through.” She said she understood public anger towards it, but added, “I don’t actually think it’s towards me. I think it’s towards ISIS. When they think of ISIS they think of me because I’ve been put in the media so much.”

She accepted that she had joined a terrorist group, but said that she and the other girls — who are believed to have died in Syria — received explicit instructions from members of the organization on how to get to Islamic State-held Syria. She said they also researched the trip themselves, including learning the little Turkish they needed to cross the border.

Tim Lawton, a former children’s minister, told the BBC it was still not clear why Begum joined ISIS as a teenager and “what forces are brainwashing her”. He said: I think most people would frankly say that we owe her nothing. She got herself into this mess and honestly it’s up to her to figure out how she gets out of it.”

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Earlier this month, Spain became the latest country to begin repatriating families of ISIS fighters from Syrian refugee camps, when two Spanish women and 13 Spanish children arrived at the Torrejon de Ardoz military air base near Madrid.

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