Father Of One Of Three British Schoolgirls Believed To Have Fled To Join ISIS Emotional As He Urges Daughter To Return Home

The father of one of the three British schoolgirls believed to have fled to Syria to join Islamic State (read here) said her family ‘cannot stop crying’ as he appealed for her to return home.

Abase Hussen said his daughter Amira Abase told him she was going to a wedding on the morning she travelled to London Gatwick Airport to fly to Turkey, and had been behaving ‘in a normal way’.

‘She said “Daddy, I’m in a hurry’,’ the 47-year-old said. ‘There was no sign to suspect her at all.’

Speaking at Scotland Yard’s headquarters, Mr Abase said his daughter had not spoken about Syria or politics with her family but he did not know if she had discussions with her friends.

He said the family had asked her about a fellow pupil at Bethnal Green Academy in east London who fled to Syria in December.

‘She said, “I don’t know dad, maybe her father knows. I’m sad for that little girl,” she always said.’

Mr Abase said his daughter, 15, sent a text between 10am and 11am on Tuesday. ‘She said, “dad, the place is a little bit far. I pray my midday pray and I get back”. She didn’t come home,’ he said.

He added that the family reported her missing at about midnight on Tuesday. ‘It’s completely different now,’ he said. We are depressed, and it’s very stressful.’

He added: ‘What she’s doing is completely nonsense. Remember how we love you. Your sister and brother cannot stop crying.’

Mr Abase said his daughter had never spoken about an interest in jihad with him but ‘maybe with friends’. He added: ‘She doesn’t dare discuss something like this with us. She knows what the answer would be.’

Mr Abase said his wife has a ‘broken heart’ and is ‘sick’. ‘If anyone doesn’t have hope, life would be miserable,’ he said. ‘We don’t despair. We struggle. It’s stressful. We hope, of course.’

He spoke clutching a teddy bear dressed in a Chelsea shirt with the words ‘number one mum’ on its foot which Amira gave to her mother on Mother’s Day.

He said his daughter ‘loved Chelsea very much’. Police are urgently trying to trace Amira and her friends Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16. Their families have also appealed for them to come home.

The girls left their homes before 8am on Tuesday providing their families with ‘plausible’ reasons as to why they would be out for the day, police said.

Earlier today, William Hague suggested that the parents of children at risk of being radicalised should confiscate their passports to stop them travelling to join ISIS.

The Cabinet minister said families have a ‘big responsibility’ to spot signs that their loved ones are preparing to join jihadists in Iraq and Syria and called for tougher laws to intercept online messages.

Source: DailyMail