A member of a British family that went missing last week in the Middle East has made contact, and police said Wednesday the information suggests the father’s worst fears may have been realized.
The three women and their nine children between the ages of 3 and 15 may have entered Syria, authorities said.
The extended family disappeared on a trip from Bradford, in northern England, to Saudi Arabia. They ceased all contact on June 9 and failed to return home on June 11, as expected.
Police said that, instead, the mothers and children all boarded a plane for Turkey, which shares a border with Syria.
Police ‘extremely concerned’
The husbands of two of the women issued tearful televised pleas Tuesday for the return of their wives and children.
But the contact from one of the mothers suggested that the family has crossed the border into Syria, police said. They did not say which mother got in touch, by what means, or whom in the UK she contacted.
Police called the information that the family was now in Syria “uncorroborated.”
“We are extremely concerned for the safety of this family, especially the nine children,” said West Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Russ Foster.
The same group — all three women and their nine children — tried to fly to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, but they were stopped for security checks at an airport, the United Kingdom’s North East Counter Terrorism Unit said Wednesday.
During those security checks, the women told investigators that they intended to go to Saudi Arabia for a religious pilgrimage. Authorities found no legal reason to keep them from traveling, but the group missed its flight because of the checks, the NECTU said.
The unit did not provide the date of the first attempt to fly to Saudi Arabia.