Bethnal Green schoolgirls who fled Britain to join ISIS as jihadi brides feared dead by their families
The teens have not been in contact with their loved ones for over a year after they joined the brutal terror group
FOUR schoolgirls who fled to Syria from East London to join ISIS are feared dead by their worried families.
The teens, from Bethnal Green, have not been in touch with their loved ones for over a year after they joined the brutal terror group.
Sharmeena Begum, 15, was the first to flee to war-torn Syria at the end of 2014.
She was joined in February 2015 by Bethnal Green Academy school pals Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum, 15, and Amira Abase, 15.
The schoolgirls deceived their families and told them they would be out for the day - but they instead headed to Gatwick Airport to join bloodthirsty ISIS jihadists.
Cops had faced a race against time to stop the straight A students from falling into the terror group's clutches but they managed to cross into besieged ISIS stronghold Raqqa.
Model student Kadiza is believed to have been killed in an airstrike in the city last year, and now families for the other three girls fear the same fate.
Anxious families have been in intermittent contact with the teens but all communication has been cut off since May last year.
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Lawyer Tasnime Akunjee, who has been representing the families, told the Sunday Times: “They fear the worst but live in hope.”
And last week, Abase's dad pleaded for news about his daughter, saying: "You need to find out whether she is [alive] or not”.
Kadiza is understood to have married a Western fighter but wanted to return to the UK after he was killed - telling a relative she felt "scared" shortly before her death.
Shamima reportedly became a jihadi bride after she married an American recruit who left her once she fell pregnant.
A British fighter who knew the girls in Raqqa told the paper: “Her husband was American. I didn’t see him, but he left her. He escaped and she was newly pregnant. This was maybe one-and-a-half years ago.”
Last month, a runaway bride of an ISIS fighter revealed how she lived with the three girls in Syria - saying they were delighted to read about themselves in British newspapers.
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