Yazidi survival story:
Jihadist raped children and
sold them ‘for as little as a
pack of cigarettes’
A 14-year-old Yazidi girl has spoken of her torment after being kidnapped and sold as a sex slave in the Islamic State, during which she was raped and beaten on a daily basis.
Bahar was taken from her family and forced to undergo examinations to provide ‘proof’ of her virginity, before she was sold to four different men over a period of six months.
The teenager, from the Iraqi area of Kurdistan, finally managed to escape her captors after her family ‘bought’ her back for $800.
As Kurdish forces close in on ISIS-controlled areas, the stories of the Yazidi survivors reveal the horrific treatment they suffered.
Bahar, whose real name has been withheld for her protection, had not yet started her period when she was kidnapped and taken from her family by ISIS soldiers.
Despite this, her captors demanded proof that she was still a virgin, and she was forced to undergo several examinations by gynecologist, accompanied by female IS soldiers.
After gaining ‘proof’ of her virginity, the IS women concluded that she could be sold, and she was bought by a 38-year-old man, who already ‘owned’ one young Yazidi girl.
When she was sold to her new ‘owner’, Bahar was told that she would work in his home and perform household chores until she had gotten her period.
However, just one month later, the ISIS soldier went back on his word and raped her.
After this, the teenager was sexually assaulted on a daily basis. As punishment for fighting back, her captor would whip her on her back, which is now covered in scars.
Bahar suffered for six months, during which she was sold to four different men, and only escaped after her family managed to ‘buy’ her back for $800.
Her family paid a man who has specialised in helping Yazidi girls escape slavery, and she was able to leave ISIS controlled areas and return to Kurdistan.
Bahar’s story has been relayed to MailOnline by Swedish-Kurdish aid worker Delal Sindy, 23, who has been living in Zakho, Dohuk since October last year.
She reveals that a majority of the girls she meets who have escaped after being held as sex slaves are under 16 years old, with a few over 25, and less than a handful over 40.
This echoes a report by a UN envoy last month, which revealed that teenage Yazidi girls are being sold in slave markets in the Islamic State ‘for as little as a pack of cigarettes’.
Adult women tend to be used as domestic slaves or farm workers, as was the case for 36-year-old Nergiz, a mother-of-four who was taken with her whole family.
Nergiz, her husband and their two sons were forced to work as shepherds while suffering daily beatings and only given food once a day.
Nergiz’s 13-year-old daughter was held captive and told they would wait for her to ‘mature’ for marriage, but was subjected to physical abuse and raped by IS soldiers.
In order to protect her youngest daughter, eight, Nergiz hid the child under mattresses and wool as she was guaranteed to have been taken and sold as a sex slave.
The expansion of the Islamic State in Syria and in Kurdish areas has displaced thousands, with some 200,000 IDPs in the Duhok province alone.
Ms Sindy estimates that there are more IDPs than locals in the city of Zakho, with more coming every day.
With the retaking of Kobane earlier this year, some IDPs who fled from west Kurdistan in Syria to Kurdish-controlled areas of Turkey have now been able to return, but the city and the areas are still ravaged by the war.
‘When I first arrived the people of Kurdistan were depressed and scared,’ Ms Sindy says.
‘They continued to live their lives, going to work, going out in the city, but it was a totally different mood across the entire country.
The 23-year-old, who is determined to stay and continue her work, says that although the people of Kurdistan are mourning the more than 1,200 fighters who have died fighting ISIS, the general feeling is one of hope.
‘Every family has at least one family member or relative that is fighting with Peshmerga, but they and the Kurdish security force Asayish are doing an amazing job on protection the inhabitants of Kurdistan, both original and IDPs.
The Kurdish Peshmerga is the official military force in Iraqi Kurdistan, but it works closely with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – the Kurdish armed forces in Syria which has made significant progress in the battle against ISIS – and they perform joint operations on several frontlines, including Kobane and Shingal.
Yesterday, the YPG said it had recovered full control of the border town of Tel Abyad after ISIS fighters made an attempt to raid the city.
Backed by U.S.-led air strikes, the YPG and smaller Syrian rebel groups captured Tel Abyad from Islamic State on June 15, severing an important supply route for the militants between the Turkish border and its de facto capital of Raqqa city to the south.
YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said Islamic State fighters were repelled overnight after they briefly wrested control of an area on Tel Abyad’s eastern periphery.
‘The situation in Tel Abyad is over and under control,’ he told Reuters. Three Islamic State fighters had been killed in the fighting, and a fourth had blown himself up with an explosive belt.
ISIS troops went back on the offensive in Syria last week, raiding Kurdish-controlled Kobane – also known as Ayn al-Arab – while simultaneously launching an attack on government-held areas of the northeastern city of Hasaka.
The Islamic State raid on Kobani killed more than 220 civilians – one of its worst mass killings to date. The YPG said it reestablished full control over Kobani on Saturday, killing more than 60 Islamic State militants who had raided the town.
The YPG’s success against Islamic State is one of the few bright spots for the U.S. strategy aimed at rolling back the jihadist group in Iraq and Syria.
The YPG is to date the only significant partner for a U.S.-led air campaign in Syria, as Washington has shunned the idea of cooperating with Damascus.
The Syrian military has also been partly able to regain areas of the northeastern city of Hasaka lost to Islamic State in its attack last week.
The city is divided into zones run separately by the YPG and the Syrian government, and is one of President Bashar al-Assad’s last footholds in the northeastern corner of Syria at the border with Iraq and Turkey.
by'
k.jagadeesh
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