UK works to bring trapped IS children home

The United Kingdom foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, says officials are working on how to rescue British children born to Islamic State runaways after Shamima Begum's baby died in a Syrian camp last week.

It comes after reports that two further women married into the terror group have been stripped of their UK citizenship while being held in detention camps with their children.

Begum, who ran away from home in east London to join the terror organization at the age of 15, had pleaded to return to Britain with her son, Jarrah, after already losing two children, but Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship.

The baby boy died on Thursday after suffering breathing difficulties and a lung infection.

Since Jarrah was born before his mother's British citizenship was revoked, the home secretary had acknowledged he was therefore a British citizen.

After Begum's three-week-old son died in the camp, the Labour member of Parliament Diane Abbott called the death a "stain on the conscience of this government".

Hunt has said it would have been too dangerous to send British officials to rescue the newborn baby from Syria. He described the death of Jarrah as "distressing and sad" and said the government had "been trying to do everything we can".

Questioned over why officials could not have gone to rescue the child from a camp where British media had gone to interview Begum and others, the Conservative politician said journalists had "some protection".

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, he said: "We have to think about the safety of the British officials that I would send into that war zone as a representative of the government".

Hunt said that when Begum first traveled to Syria in 2015 she knew she was going to join a "terrorist organization" and that "she was going to a country where there was no embassy, there was no consular assistance, and I'm afraid those decisions－awful though it is－they do have consequences".

Hunt said he is working with international development secretary Penny Mordaunt on how some children can be safely returned.

"We have been looking at how we can get in touch with these children, how we can find a way to get them out. Sadly in this case, as we know, it wasn't possible," he added.