Three sisters and their nine children from northern England have disappeared while on a trip to the Middle East, and they are feared to be headed for war-torn Syria.
Worried relatives in Britain — including the women’s husbands — have appealed for help to track them down amid concerns the sisters could be trying to join a brother in Syria.
A statement issued by lawyer Balaal Khan, acting for the Dawood family, said the three missing women and their children, ages 3 to 15, had traveled to Saudi Arabia on an Islamic pilgrimage on May 28.
But instead of returning home to the city of Bradford as expected Thursday, they have disappeared.
They have not been in touch since June 9, and their cell phones have not been active since that date. Nor have their social media profiles been updated in the past week, the statement said.
The three sisters have been named as Khadija Dawood, Sugra Dawood and Zohra Dawood, all in their 30s.
Khadija Dawood’s two children are Maryam Siddiqui, 7, and Muhammad Haseeb, 5; Sugra Dawood’s five children are Junaid Ahmed Iqbal, Ibrahim Iqbal, Zaynab Iqbal, Mariya Iqbal and Ismaeel Iqbal, ages 15 to 3; and Zohra Dawood’s two children are Haafiyah Binte Zubair, 8, and Nurah Binte Zubair, 5.
Preliminary indications are that 10 of the group — everyone except Haafiyah and Nurah Zubair — boarded a flight from Medina in Saudi Arabia to Istanbul in Turkey on June 9. It’s not clear where those two girls might be now.
“The family of the missing persons are extremely worried and feel helpless,” the statement said, adding that the family had gone to the media in the hopes of getting help in finding their missing relatives.
Lawmaker: Women’s brother already in Syria
The brother of the three missing women is already in Syria, Naz Shah, a member of Parliament from the Bradford area, told CNN. That is why the family is so concerned about the whereabouts of the missing women and their children, she said.
Shah added that she has “never heard of anything remotely like this in Bradford before.”
Turkey has become a popular transit route for people seeking to reach Syria, where ISIS and other opposition groups have been battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Another local Bradford member of Parliament, Imran Hussain, has asked Britain’s Foreign Office to help find the family.
The Foreign Office said: “We are in contact with West Yorkshire police and Turkish authorities and are ready to provide consular assistance.”
Police: Families are ‘gravely worried’
The Dawood family reported the women and children’s disappearance to police after they failed to return as expected on June 11.
Officers are investigating their whereabouts and are “working extensively with authorities overseas to try and locate them,” a statement from West Yorkshire police said.
Assistant Chief Constable Russ Foster said: “We are extremely concerned for the safety of the family and would urge anyone with information to come forward and speak to us.
“Our priority is for their safe return; their families are gravely worried about them and want them home. One of our primary concerns is the safety and welfare of the young children.”
News of the Dawoods’ disappearance came shortly after family members of a teenage boy from West Yorkshire said they were “devastated and heartbroken” after ISIS released a photo showing the 17-year-old in front of an ISIS black flag. There are fears the boy, Talha Asmal from Dewsbury, may have been involved in ISIS suicide attacks near the Iraqi city of Baiji.
Other teens have also been swept up in the allure of ISIS. Earlier this year, three teenage British girls were seen on airport surveillance footage heading to Syria. A Scottish teenager wrote extensively on her Tumblr account about her love of ISIS. She stunned her family, left the country and became an ISIS bride and recruiter.
An American teenager from suburban Chicago, Mohammed Hamzah Khan, allegedly was on his way to join ISIS in October when he was stopped at an airport.