Politics
Shamima Begum says she wanted to kill herself when her 3 kids died as she begs Brits ‘give me a second chance’
SHAMIMA Begum said she wanted to kill herself when her three kids died – as she begs Brits to give her a “second chance”.
The teen ISIS bride fled Britain for Syria to join the Islamic State group in 2015.
Shamima Begum begs Brits ‘give me a second chance’ in a new documentary[/caption]
The teen ISIS bride fled Britain for Syria in 2015[/caption]
The film, shot in 2019, follows Begum living at the Roj camp in Syria after the fall of the terror group’s caliphate.
She is encouraged to write letters to her younger self about her regrets during therapy sessions with other Western women.
She tells the group nervously: “Okay, um… My name’s Shamima. I’m from the UK. I’m 19.”
Begum also tells the filmmakers: “I would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance because I was still young when I left.
“I just want them to put aside everything they’ve heard about me in the media.”
Begum said she wanted to kill herself after her daughter died in the camp.
She said: “When she died it was so hard because I just felt so alone and I felt like my entire world was falling apart in front of me and I couldn’t do anything.
“I felt like it was my fault for not getting them out sooner.
“When she died at that moment I just wanted to kill myself. I felt like I couldn’t even get up to run any more when there were bombings.
“The only thing keeping me alive was my baby I was pregnant with. I felt like I had to do him right by getting him out and giving him a normal life.”
Begum also pleaded with people in the UK to keep an “open mind” about her as she fights to return.
She said: “‘I would say to the people in the UK to give me a second chance because I was still young when I left.
“I would ask that they put aside everything they’ve heard about me and just have an open mind about why I left and who I am now as a person.”
The footage is captured in The Return: Life After ISIS – a documentary premiering today at the online Texas-based South By Southwest festival.
Spanish director Alba Sotorra got rare, extensive access to Begum and other Western women over several months in Syria’s Kurdish-run Roj camp, where they remain.
Begum was pictured this week having ditched traditional Islamic dress for Western clothes[/caption]
She fled Britain with two school friends at 15-years-old[/caption]
Begum was pictured this week having ditched traditional Islamic dress for Western clothes.
Striking photos show the 21-year-old strolling through a Syrian refugee camp wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt.
The pictures hint Begum is trying to convince the world she has now cut her ties with her terrorist past.
By contrast, she wore a black headscarf and robes when she was found and interviewed in 2019.
Then, she made no secret of her sympathy with the IS death cult, revealing how she had sewn bombers into their suicide vests.
Begum has since fought to return to Britain to challenge the Home Office’s removal of her UK citizenship.
But last month, Britain’s Supreme Court rejected Begum’s bid to return to challenge a decision stripping her citizenship on national security grounds.
Begum’s baby boy in 2019[/caption]
Last month, Britain’s Supreme Court rejected Begum’s bid to return[/caption]
Begum left her London home aged just 15 to travel to Syria with two school friends, and married an IS fighter.
She was found heavily pregnant by British journalists at another Syrian camp in February 2019 – and her apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews sparked outrage.
But Begum and fellow Westerners, including US-born Hoda Muthana, strike a different tone in Sotorra’s film.
Begum recalls feeling like an “outsider” in London who wanted to “help the Syrians”.
But she claims on arrival she quickly realised IS were “trapping people” to boost the so-called caliphate’s numbers and “look good for the (propaganda) videos”.
Sotorra told AFP: “I will never be able to understand how a woman from the West can take this decision of leaving everything behind to join a group that is committing the atrocities that ISIS is committing.
“I do understand now how you can make a mistake.”
On Sotorra’s arrival in March 2019, the women – fresh from a warzone – were “somehow blocked… not thinking and not feeling”.
“Shamima was a piece of ice when I met her,” Sotorra said.
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“She lost the kid when I was there… it took a while to be able to cry,” she recalled.
“I think it’s just surviving, you need to protect yourself to survive.”
In the film, Begum claims she “had no choice but to say certain things” to journalists “because I lived in fear of these women coming to my tent one day and killing me and killing my baby”.
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