Overview

• Begum, 26, appeared pale and thin during a brief encounter with reporters at the Kurdish-run al-Roj detention camp in northeast Syria.
• She gave terse replies including “no comment” and ended the meeting within minutes, telling journalists, “We don’t have anything to say.”
• The session, arranged by the Daily Express, was her first on-camera contact with UK media since 2023 and she arrived alongside American detainee Hoda Muthana.
• Begum was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 on national security grounds and remains stateless among roughly 2,000 women and children held at al-Roj and al-Hawl, including several other UK nationals.
• After the Supreme Court declined a final appeal in August 2024, her legal team is preparing a Strasbourg case as UK ministers continue to oppose her return on security grounds.