The three-week-old son of Shamima Begum, the British woman who was stripped of her citizenship after she left the U.K. to join ISIS, has died of pneumonia, reports said Friday.
Begum, 19, gave birth to her third child Jarrah in mid-February, while living at a camp run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurds and other groups that is working to drive the Islamic State out of the last territory they hold.
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Jarrah was reportedly born healthy but started to develop breathing difficulties and was taken to hospital on Thursday, a paramedic working with the Kurdish Red Crescent told BBC News.
The baby died later that day. He has been buried in the camp.
Begum’s husband, ISIS fighter Yago Riedjik, has been detained at a prison near the camp and he knows the baby has died.
Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer representing Begum’s family, confirmed the baby’s death on Twitter.
Begum had hoped to bring her baby back to the U.K. with her.
The U.K. stripped Begum of her citizenship under the British Nationality Act, but Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the decision wouldn’t have applied to Jarrah.
“Children should not suffer, so if a parent does lose their British citizenship it does not affect the rights of their child,” he said, as quoted by BBC News.
However, Al-Jazeera reported Javid saying it would be “incredibly difficult” to bring Jarrah from Syria to the U.K.
Begum’s family is challenging the U.K.’s decision to revoke her citizenship.
Under U.K. law, citizenship can be revoked so long as there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the person could become a national of another country.
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Begum is British-Bangladeshi, according to reports, but Bangladesh said she’s not a national of that country and won’t accept her there.
That puts Begum at risk of statelessness — a status that U.K. law is set up to avoid.
Her family can challenge the decision before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission — Begum’s reported Bangladeshi status is expected to be a prime focus as part of that process.