Sharmeena Begum
Sharmeena Begum (sometimes transliterated as Shamina; born 1999) is one of the jihadi brides. She left the United Kingdom to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in December 2014. Two months later, in February 2015, school friends Amira Abase, Shamima Begum, and Kadiza Sultana joined her in occupied Syria. Begum is one of the youngest British teenagers to join ISIL. In February 2019 Begum was described as "missing". However in 2023 she was tracked down by the BBC, currently living in Syria using a different identity. Background Sharmeena Begum was born to Shahnaz Begum and Mohammad Uddin who are of Bangladeshi origin. She was raised by her mother until her father joined them in the UK in 2007. Begum's mother died of cancer in January 2014. Her father remarried in September 2014, and Begum left for Syria in December 2014. Begum's father, Mohammad Uddin, said that her behaviour changed; she stopped listening to western music, and started going to her room to pray, but he assumed this was a grief reaction to her mother's death. At the time of her father's second marriage she lived with her grandmother. Members of her family were sure Begum was