The father of one of three “straight A” British schoolgirls feared to have fled to Syria to join ISIS believes “what she’s doing is completely nonsense” — and her decision to abandon her family has left them emotionally crushed, he said.
“We cannot stop crying,” Abase Hussen, father of 15-year-old Amira Abase, told The Press Association. “We are depressed, and it’s very stressful. The message we have for Amira is to get back home. We miss you.”
“Please think twice,” he urged. “Don’t go to Syria.”
Abase and her friends Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, left their homes in east London on Tuesday, Feb. 17, and flew from Gatwick airport to Turkey. The girls are all British nationals of Bangladeshi descent and are believed to be heading to shack up with Islamic State thugs in the Middle East.
Speaking Sunday at Scotland Yard’s headquarters and clutching a teddy bear that Abase had given to her mother on Mother’s Day, Hussen explained that his daughter — who had previously not been named at the request of her family — showed “no sign” that she wanted to travel to Syria.
“She doesn’t dare discuss something like this with us,” he said, adding that her heartfelt interest in ISIS could have been discussed “maybe with friends.”
“She knows what the answer would be,” he continued. “What she’s doing is completely nonsense. Remember how we love you. Your sister and brother cannot stop crying.”
Hussen’s daughter had been behaving “in a normal way” and claimed she was going to a wedding on Tuesday morning, according to The Press Association.
“She said ‘Daddy, I’m in a hurry,'” her father told The Press Association. “There was no sign to suspect her at all.”
“It’s completely different now,” Hussen said.
Begum and Sultana’s families have also appealed for their safe return as police desperately try to trace their whereabouts in Turkey.