Britain has quietly repatriated women and children linked to ISIS who were held alongside Shamima Begum, a director of a Syrian camp has claimed.
At least six women and nine children have been sent back to Britain from camps held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Times reported.
They were returned amid fears that ISIS prisoners held by the SDF may escape as chaos engulfs eastern Syria as the new Syrian government begins to reclaim territory from the SDF.
So far, the Kurdish-led SDF remains in control of the al-Roj camp near the Iraqi border, where Begum and other British women were held following ISIS demise.
While the UK’s official policy on repatriation has remained unchanged, the newspaper reported that the foreign office has allowed just a handful of women to return on a case-by-case basis.
Most of those who have been handed back to the UK were women who were taken to Syria when they were just children.
A camp official told the Times that a further 29 British women and children remain in the al-Roj camp, which is set to be handed over to the Syrian government.
Control of another, larger camp – al-Hawl – has already been handed over to the Syrian government. But Jihan Hanan, who was the director of al-Hawl until this week, said the process was messy and chaotic.
Britain has quietly repatriated women and children linked to ISIS who were held alongside Shamima Begum (pictured)
Women walk at Camp al-Roj, where relatives of people suspected of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group are held, in the countryside near al-Malikiyah (Derik) in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on October 8, 2023
Women and children seen inside al-Hawlcamp, amongst them some 6,200 women and children from around 40 nationalities, and including relatives of suspected Islamic State jihadists in the desert region of Hasakah province on January 25, 2026 in Al Hasakah, Syria
The SDF pulled out its troops as Syrian government troops advanced on them, leading to major riots and dozens of ISIS-linked women escaping, with their whereabouts unknown.
Hanan said: ‘There were no preparations for the handover. I’m looking at the videos and pictures coming out and it burns my heart.
‘The people inside, the international community’s indifference. At the end of the day these are women and children’.
Though the SDF has called on nations to repatriate their citizens, most have refused.
The US, currently debating whether to withdraw its forces from Syria, recently brokered a deal to transfer male ISIS prisoners to neighbouring Iraq.
Hanan said: ‘The international community should say: “Enough, this matter needs to be resolved”.’
During the 2010s, countless women travelled or were taken to Syria to join ISIS. Begum was one of three women from Bethnal Green, London, who left the UK in 2015.
The other two she travelled with are believed to have died amid fighting between ISIS jihadists and a Western coalition that set about ridding the region of the terrorist organisation.
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Members of Syrian security forces inside the al-Hawl camp in the desert region of Hasakah province on January 25, 2026 in Al Hasakah, Syria
Control of al-Hawl has already been handed over to the Syrian government.
Following ISIS’s fall from power, its prisoners were held in camps under Kurdish guard.
There, women raised their children in tents under ISIS’ extremist beliefs.
At these camps, boys who hit puberty were forced to sleep with older women to produce more ‘lion cubs’ to bolster the caliphate’s numbers.
Reprieve, a human rights charity that represents foreign families detained in the camps, accused the UK of abandoning British citizens in dire straits.
Maya Foa, chief executive of the charity, said: ‘While all of our security allies have a policy of repatriating families, Britain has taken a ‘do nothing’ approach.
‘Over two governments they have brought home just a handful of women and children — and there have been even fewer under this government than the previous one.
‘This approach is totally inadequate in the current moment, when British families are at acute risk, in a dangerous detention camp that could collapse at any time.
‘The US brought its people back long ago and has urged Britain to do the same. Where there are cases to answer, the adults can be prosecuted in British courts.’
