SHE sits in a refugee camp in Syria, a child in her arms, and speaks of how she got there. A tale is told of leaving home without her parents’ knowledge. Of being smuggled into a war zone, where she met and married an Islamic State fighter. Yes, she witnessed terrible things, but she is very sorry, recognises the error of her ways, and simply wants to go home with her baby and lead a quiet life.

No, it is not Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old who left London in 2015. The woman telling her story to the New York Times is Hoda Muthana, who is a year older than Ms Begum, and comes from Alabama. As the Islamic State lies in ruin and defeat, the UK is not the only country now realising that the end of this conflict will be as messy as many another.

As President Trump said at the weekend, there are some 800 captured foreign fighters waiting to be repatriated. Then there are the IS brides, precise numbers unknown, and their children. Should each one be stripped of citizenship, as the UK Government has done in the case of Ms Begum, and left to their fate? Or in taking such action are western societies making the classic mistake of ending one conflict by laying the foundations of another?

When it comes to the fighters, Mr Trump believes the answer is simple: each country is responsible for taking back its own citizens and putting them on trial. They should not expect the US to take responsibility. “Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing,” tweeted the President. The alternative, he said, was for them to be released, where they would soon find their way back into mainland Europe.

He is right. Those who took up arms on behalf of banned terrorist groups such as IS must be sent home to face trial if there is sufficient evidence against them. Even if there is not enough evidence for a trial, the notion that these young men, by now battle-hardened and highly trained, should be left to slip back to their own countries, no arrests, no questions asked, is unthinkable.

In the case of captured fighters, home governments stand a reasonable chance of securing evidence of their behaviour abroad. The appalling trail of death, destruction, rape and torture blazed by IS has been well documented, not least by the killers and rapists themselves who could not resist publicising their deeds online.

With the women and children it is different, as the Begum case illustrates. Indeed, it has been suggested that one of the reasons for stripping her of her British citizenship, rather than allowing her to come home and face arrest, was the difficulty in gathering evidence against her to use at any trial.

The Home Office has instead argued that as she has a right to Bangladeshi citizenship via her parents, she can be stripped of UK citizenship and not be left stateless, which would be against the law. Her family is considering whether to challenge the decision.

Other cases may be more difficult to resolve. It is not yet a criminal offence to simply travel to a banned destination, though plans are being put in place to make it so. Should any returning IS bride be convicted there is then the question of what to do next. Punish, rehabilitate, a mixture of both?

And what of their children, who had no choice in being born in such circumstances? Why should they suffer for the actions of their parents?

There was one glaring difference between Ms Begum and Hoda Muthana, the woman interviewed by The New York Times. Ms Muthana said she was sorry for her actions and asked for forgiveness. “Once I look back on it, I can’t stress how much of a crazy idea it was,” she told the reporters. “I can’t believe it. I ruined my life. I ruined my future.”

Ms Begum, in contrast, has shown little to no contrition. She has been her own worst advocate. Unrepentant about her support for IS, she has spoken in a matter-of-fact way of seeing beheaded bodies in bins.

Worst of all, she described the Manchester Arena bombing, in which 22 people were murdered, some of them children, as “fair retaliation” for attacks on IS.

Where she has come close to saying sorry she has had to be almost persuaded into it by interviewers.

There will be those who choose to look beyond the unsympathetic figure Ms Begum cuts and see her as a victim of sorts. They will argue that she was just 15 when she was groomed by a persuasive band of thugs who lured her from the safety of her family with the promise of romance and excitement. Once out there, she was brutalised into acceptance of her lot and had to get on with the business of survival. On top of all that, they add, her two children died in infancy, sending her further into a traumatised state in which she might find it difficult if not impossible to connect with other people.

It would be inhuman not to feel sympathy for any parent who loses a child. But Ms Begum is not the victim here. To look on her as such is an appalling slur on genuine victims of abuse, not one of whom travelled thousands of miles, at great expense, to put themselves in harm’s way.

Ms Begum chose to place herself in danger. If she had truly been naive about the barbarity of IS, it could not have taken long for it to become apparent. At that point – a day, a week, a month later? – she could have admitted her mistake and asked to come home. But four years on?

She is more than able to feel sorry for herself, yesterday calling the decision to strip her of UK citizenship “unjust”, yet seems incapable of understanding the suffering of others. Whatever contrition she has is that of the defeated, those who have no other cards to play but the sympathy one.

In time, there may be other cases not as clear-cut as Ms Begum’s. Each one should be treated on its own merits. We should not be strangers to mercy, like the murdering thugs of IS, especially where there are children involved.

As for Ms Begum, she at least has a future. It may not be the one she wished for, but it is infinitely more than the real victims of IS were ever given.