Aysha Opdam

**Aysha Opdam** was a young girl who was abducted alongside her brother, Luca Opdam, by their non custodial mother. She may have taken them to Syria to join ISIS.

## Background

Aysha's mother was a Chechen refugee who arrived in the Netherlands in 1999 and her father was a Dutch national. Her mother was a Muslim but the family were not overly religious. Aysha and her older brother, Luca, were born in the Netherlands. After Aysha's parents eventually separated, her mother gave birth to two more children, both with different fathers.

In 2009, it became apparent that Aysha and Luca's mother's behaviour had changed and that she was becoming considerably more religious. She began wearing a hijab and over the previous years her life revolved more and more around her faith. This was creating issues in her relationship as the children's father did not want to convert to Islam and found a lot of her rituals to be restrictive. In 2011 Aysha's mother took both children out of the Dutch Public School system and enrolled them at the Islamic Al Habib school without their father's consent.

Aysha's father was beginning to worry that his ex-wife might try and abduct his children in the lead-up to their disappearance. As a result, their school was notified to report any suspicious activity to both their father and the police. Their mother was also under surveillance at the time of their disappearance as she had been in a relationship with a man who left the country to join Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Despite these issues, Aysha's family was not known to child protective services.

## Case

Aysha vanished from Maastricht on October 29, 2014. That day her mother kept her home from school, claiming she was unwell, and collected Luca early. Afterwards, it was found that their mother had used one of the school computers to print off plane tickets.The school's deputy director became concerned by this and decided to warn the children's father. At this point, Luca and his mother had left over an hour ago.

Aysha's mother hid with the children at an unknown location for several days before flying from a Belguim to Greece. They used fake documents to do so and appeared to have a jihadist network supporting her travels.

In December 2014 Aysha's mother posted on Facebook, where she used the name "Umm", claiming she was in Raqqa, Syria. However, experts were able to determine she was actually in Tal Abyad near the Turkish border using a photo of her "backyard". The last contact came in early January 2015 when she called her mother and again claimed to be in Raqqa; although she didn't specify whether she was referring to the city or the province.

Aysha's father has expressed that he does not mind if his children decide to convert to Islam but that he would like them to be old enough to make the choice themselves. He believes it is unlikely he will ever be reunited with them. Aysha's two half siblings, who were left behind are being cared for by family.

According to Child Protective Services, Aysha and Luca's case is unusual as when children are taken to join ISIS both parents are involved whereas in this case their mother abducted them. It isn't possible to retrieve the children as they are in a war zone.

## Characteristics

* Curly dark blonde hair.
* Brown eyes.

## Sources

* Politie
* *RTL Nieuws* (Dutch)
* *AD Nieuws* (Dutch)
* *Radio Free Europe*
* *The Daily Beast*