SYRIA GIRLS: FAMILY ASKS POLICE TO APOLOGIZE

Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum (l-r) left Britain in February

Families of three missing schoolgirls have told MPs they would have done more to monitor them if they had known a fourth girl had already gone to Syria.

The families have complained that a police letter about the first girl was not sent directly to them.

Sahima Begum - sister of Shamima Begum - said her family was "never given the opportunity" to question her.

Shamima, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16 - all from London - traveled to Syria last month.

Appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee, Ms Begum said her family only found the police letter about the first girl after Shamima had gone missing.

She said they later found out the letter had been given to the girl - rather than being sent to the families directly.

Ms Begum said her family "did what they could" to monitor Shamima's activities, but would have done more had they known the first girl had gone to Syria.

The families have called for the Met Police to apologize after the letter was given to the girls, rather than to the families directly.

Solicitor Tasnime Akunjee, representing the families, told the committee that had the parents received the letter they would have been "on notice" for issues like radicalization and foreign travel.

Police had "put a cap" on the amount of information passed to other families about the first girl, he said.

It comes as Prime Minister David Cameron said parents and schools must also help prevent young Britons traveling to Syria.

In an interview with LBC radio, he said that no institution should be made a "scapegoat" for the girls' disappearance.

The three schoolgirls traveled from east London to Turkey last month, before crossing into an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State militants.

Mr Cameron said "everyone has a role to play" in stopping Britons joining IS, including politicians, parents, communities and schools.

"When you have got educated British schoolgirls at an outstanding school in Greenwich finding it somehow attractive to get on a plane to travel to Syria to go and live in a country where gay people are being thrown off buildings and British citizens are being beheaded, and appalling brutality is being meted out, we have a problem," he said.

He added: "Let's not pretend this is simply a problem that can be dealt with by policing."