Overview

• Reporters met the 26-year-old at the Kurdish-run al-Roj camp in northeast Syria, where she appeared pale and thin and declined to answer questions before leaving.
• It was her first in-person encounter with UK media in years, following a 2023 BBC appearance that had been her last substantial on-camera engagement.
• Begum remains stateless after the Home Office revoked her British citizenship in 2019 on national security grounds, a move upheld through the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, Court of Appeal and, finally, the Supreme Court in 2024.
• Her legal team is pursuing a case at the European Court of Human Rights, arguing the deprivation process should have considered potential child trafficking and exploitation factors.
• Al-Roj holds about 2,000 foreign-born women and children, including several from the UK, and officials and politicians continue to debate repatriation even as the British government resists return on security grounds.