Baby Jarrah's Death Rests with the UK Government

Although Baby Jarrah was born on foreign soil, and died also on foreign soil at less than three-weeks-old, his death squarely rests upon the moral actions of the British Government, which revoked the citizenship of Jarrah's mother, thus dooming the baby-boy to less than stellar medical care at a refugee camp, in Syria.

Jarrah's mother, the school girl, Shamima Begum, who at age-15 left the United Kingdom along with two other school girls and traveled to Syria via Turkey, had her British citizenship revoked by the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, only after the now 19-year-old had expressed a desire to return home.  

After living in the IS caliphate for some four-years, the Brit, who married a Dutch IS fighter, according to the BBC-News, was found nine-months pregnant and living in a refugee camp, in Syria, in mid-February, this year, by the Times Newspaper. Soon after her desire to return home was scoffed at by many in the UK, including the Home Secretary Office, even though Shamima was but just a child when she erred in venturing into Syria, no mercy was shown the young woman. She was stripped of her British citizenship soon after her baby was born.

Her child was born into "pretty appalling" conditions in the refugee camp, where according to a BBC-News report, more than 100 people had died on the way to or soon after arriving at the camp, sadly with two-thirds of those dying being under the age of five.  Shamima's baby contracted pneumonia and succumbed to the illness this past Thursday, less than three-weeks-old.

Now following Jarrah's death, some people in the UK are experiencing an empathic heart toward the tragedy of the baby, his mom, and the conditions that sent her to Syria, and the attitudes that led to the revocation of her citizenship. 

The Labour Party now calls the citizenship decision: "callous and inhumane". The BBC-News reports that conservative MP Phillip Lee has urged the government to "reflect" on its "moral responsibility" for the tragedy because despite Shamima's "abhorrent views" the decision to remove her citizenship - and therefore deny her the chance of returning to the UK - seemed "driven by populism and not by any principle " he recognized.  

And so British citizen Baby Jarrah has died even though he could have lived, possibly, had he and his mom been allowed to enter the UK to access stellar medical care. Therefore, his death rests with the UK government and the actions of the Home Secretary, who, despite having the name Sajid Javid, could not sum up enough mercy to permit the stumbled school girl to return to her family in the UK. Another sad failing of humanity.