‘I live for a chance to leave Iraq': how I survived torture and slavery at the hands of Islamic State

The Guardian

4 days ago

My childhood living in a village in northern Iraq near the city of Mosul was rich in happiness despite the lack of resources. I was fond of my school and friends and enjoyed a warm family life filled with laughter. That all vanished when Islamic State forces invaded our area.
When we heard of their approach [IS took control of large areas of northern Iraq and its second biggest city, Mosul, in 2014], we tried to escape but were surrounded by five IS vehicles. The men were separated and they took my father and one of my cousins and shot them in front of us.
At the time, aged nine, I was far too young to witness such a scene. I vividly remember crying bitterly out of fear, feeling as though this wasn't reality but a dream. Even now, I cannot rid myself of the shock and the sound of bullets as my father and cousin were killed. We have never found their bodies.
We were taken away and held captive until IS fighters came to our prison looking for young girls. One of them pulled my hair, beat me and pointed a gun at my head in front of everyone, threatening to kill me. My grandmother intervened, pleading with him to let me go, until I fainted from fear.
When I regained consciousness, she told me that many girls had been taken to Syria, but not me. We continued to be moved along with large numbers of abducted girls. The older women used to hide us in wooden boxes or refrigerators whenever IS fighters stormed the place searching for us.
We were soon moved to a nursery school, where we were forced to learn the Qur'an, pray and wear the niqab, despite our young age. The group holding us started conducting a lottery for the girls to determine their fate between enslavement, rape or domestic service.
I was chosen to serve in the house of Abu Aisha, a senior IS leader, where I was subjected to torture and beatings. I was forced to clean his four houses and care for his children. His wife would complain about me and sometimes they would deprive me of food for days. He would beat me with chains and leave me shackled in the rain.
Abu Aisha used to kill captives with knives and cleavers, and he trained his children to do the same. Every night, Abu Aisha would choose a Yazidi girl to rape, and I could hear their screams as it happened. Their voices ring in my ears to this day. Because I was so young, I was not raped.
We were forbidden from speaking Kurdish, our mother tongue, or even Arabic. Communication was strictly in Turkmen because Abu Aisha and his family spoke Turkmen, a dialect of Turkish. 'You must speak like us,' they said.
When the situation for IS in Mosul began to deteriorate [Iraqi forces retook the city in 2017], the group claimed they would allow us to return to our families, but there was a plan to kill us all. They gave us explosive belts and ordered us to wear them to blow ourselves up when we met our families. Luckily, my friend and I managed to cut the wires of the belts.
It was a daring move because we had heard a lot about explosive belts and car bombs. To this day, I don't know how it didn't explode. Everything was a miracle. I can't believe how we escaped or endured all that torment. We had no emotions left.
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Liberation wasn't the end of the suffering but the beginning of a new journey of psychological pain. I had partly lost my memory due to the brainwashing and couldn't even recognise my siblings.
I tried to return to school, but I couldn't continue because of the psychological trauma. To this day, I suffer from nightmares and I hear the screams of the girls who were raped and tortured with me.
I live waiting for a chance to leave Iraq in search of a new life, far from the nightmares of the past. I can no longer live here [in northern Iraq], or any place that reminds me of the past. Every corner of this town [Sinjar] reminds me of the hell I lived through. IS destroyed my childhood, my dreams and my future.
The nightmares of the torture still haunt me, engraved in my memory, and yet most of the IS members who committed these crimes remain free. We, the survivors, are still trying to piece together what is left of our lives. They destroyed our lives, but where is justice?
Produced in collaboration with Jummar, an independent Iraqi media platform. Edited by Mizar Kemal and Tom Levitt.