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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Elaine McCahill & Fionnula Hainey

Shamima Begum told she can 'forget ever coming back to the UK'

Shamima Begum has been told she can forget ever returning to the UK by home secretary Priti Patel.

The British schoolgirl fled to Syria in 2015 to join ISIS.

Earlier this year she begged to come home but her citizenship was revoked by the previous home secretary Sajid Javid.

She now claims she hates ISIS and she which is suffering after losing three babies.

Ms Begum, who is now 20, wants to return to the country to stand trial but has not spoken to her family in the UK since leaving, reports the Mirror.

Home secretary Priti Patel has responded by saying there is "no way" she will be allowed back.

"Our job is to keep our country safe," Ms Patel said.

"We don't need people who have done harm and left our country to be part of a death cult and to perpetrate that ideology.

"We cannot have people who would do us harm allowed to enter our country - and that includes this woman.

"Everything I see in terms of security and intelligence, I am simply not willing to allow anybody who has been an active supporter or campaigner for IS in this country."

She added that it was "quite reassuring" to see Ms Begum was still living in a camp in war-torn Syria.

Ms Begum married Dutch-born Yago Riedijk shortly after leaving the UK and said her purpose was to "make babies".

Shamima Begum left the UK to join ISIS when she was a schoolgirl (PA)

It is claimed she used to stitch suicide bombers' vests for the jihadist group and actively try to recruit other women to join them.

She now lives in a new camp in Syria where she shares a tent with a Canadian woman who is 30 years older than her. They have a TV and Ms Begum has said that she watches it as a form of escape.

In an earlier interview, she said: "My mental health situation is not the best. My physical health is OK, I am still young and do not get sick. That is not my problem. Mentally, though, I am in a really bad way. I need therapy to deal with my grief. It is so hard. I have lost all my children.

"None of the people I am living with in here know what I have experienced. They are not like my school friends who I could always talk to. They do not understand what I have been through."

Her father, Ahmed Ali, has said his daughter should face justice in Britain despite previously appearing to back the removal of her citizenship.

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