LONDON — One of the three schoolgirls who shocked a nation when they fled London last year to join the Islamic State militant group is feared dead, her family’s lawyer has said.
Kadiza Sultana — one of about 800 British citizens alleged to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to support groups such as the Islamic State — is thought to have been killed by an airstrike about three months ago in Raqqa, Syria, an Islamic State stronghold.
Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer for the Sultanas, told the BBC that her relatives believe she is dead, although the reports remain unverified.
Her family is “very obviously devastated,” he said. “There is nothing worse than finding out that your sibling or your family member has been killed.” He said that an escape plan for Sultana had progressed to a “mature level” but that she had decided not to risk the attempt because she feared being captured and punished.
According to the British broadcaster ITV, which broke the story Thursday night based on what it said were “contacts in Raqqa,” Sultana is believed to have been killed by a Russian airstrike in May. She had also reportedly married an American of Somali origin who had been killed previously.
At one point in an ITV broadcast, the sisters are seen talking about Sultana trying to escape to a safe house. Khanom asks her sister how much confidence she has about getting out of Syria.
Sultana responds in a quiet voice: “Zero.”
Sultana was one of three schoolgirls from the east London neighborhood of Bethnal Green to join the Islamic State.
It was a story that stunned a nation.
In February 2015, Sultana, who was 16 at the time, fled the U.K. with two 15-year-old friends, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase. The young women were bright, articulate students who came from seemingly loving families. They boarded a flight from London’s Gatwick Airport to Turkey, then traveled on to Syria.
Rushanara Ali, the member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, told the BBC on Friday that the government needed to do an assessment of “Prevent,” as its counter-radicalization strategy is known.
“I have huge concerns about some of the ways in which it’s implemented, some of it can be quite misguided,” she said. “What the government needs to do is a proper assessment of what’s working, and what’s not, and they need to listen to the Muslim community.”
A report published last year by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue estimated that about 550 Western women were living in the area controlled by the Islamic State. Their main responsibilities were being good wives and raising children, the report said, but they also played an important role in the recruitment of other women.
The fate of the two other girls remains unknown.
