Meanwhile, Sky News reported that the girls were in Syria, according to its sources.
“We are told by ... good sources within the city of al Raqqa that they are there, that they are safe,” Sky News said this weekend. “They’re now apparently in a house that is owned or controlled—or at least hosted by—a British girl who had been in contact with them through the internet, and had brought them through Turkey and into Syria.”
The U.K. schoolgirls traveled from East London to Turkey last month.
Families of the three girls described to The Guardian the nightmarish state of their lives, saying they didn’t know the girls were radicalized.
Hussen Abase, the father of Amira, said he’s “like a dead man walking” after his daughter disappeared.
According to the BBC and other U.K. media outlets, relatives of the three criticized police for not giving them “vital” information before the girls went missing.
Renu Begum, who is the sister of Shamima, told the Guardian: “We would have been able to prevent it if we knew there was a terrorism investigation by SO15 [Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command]; it would have made us know how serious it was … We were not in the loop, we were kept in the dark.”