Shamima Begum is living on £100-a-week donations from friends and family while stuck in a Syrian detention camp, reports suggest.
The former London schoolgirl, 26, who joined Islamic State as a teenager a decade ago, is reportedly enjoying small luxuries — including beauty treatments — as she fights to restore her British citizenship.
It comes a year after the Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal against the government revoking her UK nationality on national security grounds.
In 2015, Begum fled the UK aged 15 with friends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana — who became known as the “Bethnal Green Trio” — to travel to Syria and join ISIS.
Shortly after arriving in ISIS territory Begum married Yago Riedijk, 33, a Dutch national with Somali heritage who converted to Islam and became a fighter for the terrorist organisation.
It is understood that Reidijk — who shared three children with Begum, all of whom have since passed away — is now behind bars in a Kurdish-run Syrian jail.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her British citizenship in 2019, prompting her to launch a legal and PR campaign in a bid to have the decision reversed.
As she continues to fight her case, Begum is currently residing at the al-Roj refugee camp in the city of Al Hasakah, northern Syria.
The facility, which is made up of rows of tents inside a fortified compound, has been criticised by the Red Cross for being “extremely volatile”.
Begum is allegedly receiving up to £400 per month, which is transferred to a makeshift bank by loved ones in the UK.
She then uses the cash to top up her mobile phone and visit a shopping area selling items such as makeup, groceries and fake designer clothes.
Begum is said to be receiving clothing and other parcels of everyday items from relatives in the capital.
She has a tent that is equipped with a television, running water and electricity, according to the Daily Mail.
One part of it is a kitchen and along with all the other inmates, she has been issued with a cooker which is filled with gas once a week.
Al-Roj, home to 12,000 women and children who are mainly relatives of male ISIS members, has a school and 24-hour health centre where ophthalmologists and dentists are on standby.
The beauty treatments are said to be part of an ongoing campaign by Begum to present herself as more “Western” in the hope of winning public support. She also no longer wears a hijab.
A source said: “(Begum) lives in relative comfort. She gets good support from NGOs (non-government organisations) and the SDF (Syrian Defence Forces) working in the camp.”
She was pictured for the first time in years earlier this week looking “pale and gaunt” as she stormed out of an interview with a Daily Express journalist.
She was asked about speculation her hopes of returning to the UK could be boosted after the Trump administration suggested that if Britain wanted to be seen as a “serious ally” of the US then it should commit to the international fight against ISIS by taking back citizens currently in the northeast of Syria.
She replied “no comment” before storming out.
Begum’s lawyers have argued that she was trafficked to Syria, alongside Sultana, who is believed to have been killed in an explosion, and Abase, whose fate is unknown.
As the battle for her return goes on she has largely refrained from making public comment about her situation.
Mahmoud, a Kurdish translator who previously worked in al-Roj and has met Begum told the Daily Mail: “She is refusing interviews on the advice of her lawyer. You can still visit her in the camp, but she is unlikely to go on the record.”
