Spanish director Alba Sotorra is filming a documentary in Syria's Kurdish-run Roj camp where western women including Shamima Begum are living after the caliphate's fall in 2019.
Begum was 15 when she left Britain for Syria in 2015 along with two of her school friends, and married a Daesh fighter. In 2019, when she was traced by British journalists, Begum, heavily pregnant and in initial interviews had no remorse for her actions. But her desire to return back to UK sparked outrage and resulting being stripped of her citizenship.
In one of the footage, Begum introduces by saying, "...my name's Shamima. I'm from the UK. I'm 19."
"I would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance because I was still young when I left," Begum appeals in the documentary.
"I just want them to put aside everything they've heard about me in the media," she also says.
Begum recalls feeling like an "outsider" in London who wanted to "help the Syrians," but claims on arrival she quickly realised Daesh were "trapping people" to boost the caliphate's numbers and "look good for the (propaganda) videos."
'It took a while to be able to cry'
Sotorra's familiarity with Kurdish fighters in Syria helped her to get access to the Roj camp and the filmmaker told news agency AFP that it is hard for her to comprehend how women from the west joined Daesh.
"I will never be able to understand how a woman from the West can take this decision of leaving everything behind to join a group that is committing the atrocities that ISIS is committing," Sotorra told AFP.
"I do understand now how you can make a mistake."
On Sotorra's arrival in March 2019, the women from the warzone were "not thinking and not feeling".
"Shamima was a piece of ice when I met her," Sotorra says.
"She lost the kid when I was there... it took a while to be able to cry," she adds.
"I think it's just surviving, you need to protect yourself to survive."
Begum in one of the clips claims she was under constant fear from other more radicalised women in the camp and had to say certain things to journalists "because I lived in fear of these women coming to my tent one day and killing me and killing my baby."
Last month, UK Supreme Court rejected Begum's plea to return home by stripping her of her citizenship on national security grounds.
Like Begum, there are other women and their children from different western countries, staring at an uncertain future with a desire to return.
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