A friend of the three missing London schoolgirls heading to Syria said that everyone is worried about them and hoped they would come back for their exams in a couple of weeks.
The three schoolgirls, Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, are believed to be making their way to Syria to join ISIS, having flown to Turkey earlier this week.
“What were they thinking? We was all shocked when we heard about that. But individually they’re all very close they’re all just determined to do what they want to do,” said Atlanta Broadbent during an interview with Britain’s ITV news on Saturday.
Broadbent said they had not talked about going to Syria or Iraq.
“When I saw them a couple of weeks ago they just seemed normal, how they are every day, they seemed. Just going to [study sessions] everyday, they seemed normal, they spoke about anything like that,” said Broadbent.
Two of the three friends left their east London homes on Tuesday and travelled to Gatwick airport where they caught a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul without telling their families.
‘Please think twice’
The missing girls are friends with a fourth teenage girl from the same school who police believe is already in Syria, having travelled to Turkey in December.
“I think between the three of them they kind of planned this, planned it out. So they didn’t want to tell anybody else just them three,” added Broadbent.
The families of the three girls made emotional appeals for them to return home.
UK’s prime minister said the teenagers’ disappearance was “deeply concerning” and underlines how every school needs to recognize they have a role to play in stopping people from joining what he called an “appalling death cult.” (Metropolitan Police Service)
“The message we have for Amira is to get back home. We miss you. We cannot stop crying. Please think twice. Don’t go to Syria,” Abase Hussen, Amira Abase’s father, said to BBC News.
Shamima Begum’s sister said her family just wants her home safe.
“We don’t want her to do anything stupid — she is a sensible girl,” she said.
And Kadiza Sultana’s older sister said to BBC all she asks of her sister is to contact her family.
“Find the courage in your heart to contact us and let us know that you are safe and you are OK.”
Britain’s former foreign secretary William Hague said on Sunday that there should be no rush to judge who’s responsible for the three missing London schoolgirls heading to Syria.
“Well, there’s a responsibility on everybody here, in cases like these: on families, on religious leaders and on security services as well. I’m sure we’ll all want to learn lessons from everything that’s happened in every case when people go to Syria, but I wouldn’t want to rush into any judgments about who’s responsible for what,” said Hague.
Security forces estimate some 600 British Muslims have travelled to Syria to join the conflict there, some of them with the militant Sunni Islamist group ISIS.
Around half have since returned, and dozens have been arrested in Britain under anti-terrorism legislation.
