Taste of freedom: Syrian women escaping persecution under ISIS celebrate and rip their burkas off

Taste of freedom: Syrian 

women escaping persecution 

under ISIS celebrate and rip 

their burkas off

Incredible moment elated Syrian women rip off 

strict Islamic robes and headscarves after 

escaping religious persecution under ISIS

• Exclusive video shows women removing robes after escaping from ISIS
• Men, women and children arrive in Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria
• Witness said women were ‘feeling cheerful and joyful for being finally free’

This is the incredible moment elated Syrian women tear off their black shapeless robes as they enter Kurdish-controlled territory after fleeing for their lives from the clutches of Islamic State.

In two video clips released exclusively to MailOnline, men, women and children are seen celebrating their arrival in Rojava in the north of the country.

Two women pull off their robes to reveal colourful dresses while another removes her headscarf and lets it fly away in the wind after escaping religious persecution under ISIS.

EXCLUSIVE: Syrian women escape ISIS and tear off robes

Freedom: A Syrian woman tears off her shapeless black robe as she enters Kurdish-controlled territory

Elation: Men, women and children celebrate their arrival in Rojava after fleeing from the clutches of ISIS

Syria-based freelance journalist Jack Shahine watched as the refugees arrived in the area close to Tel Abyad and about 40 miles east of Kobane.

He told MailOnline: ‘These women, children and men are fleeing ISIS controlled area and as soon as reaching Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) controlled areas they remove the black Burkas obliged by ISIS, breathing freedom again.

‘These women started to remove blackness, feeling cheerful and joyful for being finally free.’

The footage was filmed by Shervan Derwish, a cameraman and the spokesman for the Euphrates Volcano Operation Room – established by the Kurdish YPG and Free Syrian Army to target the Islamic extremists.

Meanwhile this week, ISIS militants have launched a major attack on the predominantly Kurdish city of Hassakeh in northeastern Syria, according to activists and Syrian state media.

A woman removes her robe revealing a bright green dress as she crosses into Kurdish-controlled territory

The incredible footage was filmed close to Tel Abyad in Syria and was released exclusively to MailOnline

A Syrian woman raises her arms in the air as she celebrates escaping from ISIS and arriving in Rojava, Syria

It was in an apparent attempt to reverse some of the advances made recently by Kurdish fighters in the northeastern Syrian province.

Kurdish fighters have captured dozens of towns and villages there with the help of US-led airstrikes and are getting close to Tel Abyad, a major Islamic State-held border town near Turkey.

The extremists launched the push on the city of Hassakeh, which is split between government forces and Kurdish defenders, on Tuesday night.

Syrian state television said extremists are battling for control of a juvenile prison still under construction on Hassakeh’s southern edge and have so far attacked it with five suicide car bombs.

The TV report said government warplanes have struck the ISIS stronghold of Shaddadeh, south of Hassakeh.

Syria-based freelance journalist Jack Shahine watched as the refugees arrived in the area and said they were ‘joyful for being finally free’

Women raise their hands in the air with smiles on the faces as they arrive in Kurdish-controlled territory

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian air force is also taking part in the battle around Hassakeh and that ISIS gunmen have entered the prison building.

The group said dozens of fighters were killed on both sides, adding that IS brought reinforcements of about 400 fighters from the nearby province of Deir el-Zour.

Activists also reported intense fighting Wednesday in the northern Aleppo province between ISIS fighters and other insurgent groups including al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front.

ISIS has been on the offensive in the area where they captured several towns and villages over the past days.

by

k.jagadeesh

islamic State (ISIS) forcefully circumcised Assyrian Christian men and women in Mosul without anesthesia, while women are sold as salves for $150 each

islamic State (ISIS) 

forcefully 

circumcised Assyrian 

Christian men and women 

in 

Mosul without anesthesia, 

while women are sold as 

salves for $150 each

Posted on August 23, 2014 by ADMIN18 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 Votes

In this testimony Christians claim that the Kurdish PKK militant fighters helped ISIS to find and target the Christians in Mosul. The PKK (The Kurdistan Workers’ Party) was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.  The name ‘PKK’ is usually used interchangeably for the name of its armed wing, the People’s Defence Force (HPG), which was formerly called the Kurdistan National Liberty Army (ARGK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United States, and the European Union.

This testimony by the Christians demonstrate the complexity of giving military equipment to the PKK or any Muslim fractions in battles with each other. There simply exist no tolerance for other groups within Islam and even with its minorities. Having a terrorist group battled by another terrorist group is nothing new. In Afghanistan the Taliban was fought by al-Qaeda who were supported by arms – again with external support which never resolved anything. Arming existing local groups could increase the genocide and targeting of minorities. Clearly minorities need to first be protected and grouped into specific areas before battles against ISIS elimination proceeds. There are claims that about 40,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and new ones arrive weekly from abroad. Turkey’s government has been a constant and secret facilitator and supporter of ISIS based on their own testimony, and have kept the Turkish borders accessible for fighters to enter. Where are the new fighters trained?

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Forced MGM, Male Genital Mutilation, on Christians in Mosul.

(AINA) — The Tunisia Daily is reporting that the Islamic State (ISIS) forcefully circumcised Assyrian men in Mosul, without anesthesia. The report does not specify the number of men that were affected but does state that it was an organized mass circumcision. ISIS has ordered the circumcision of all Christian children and adults who remain in Mosul. [h/t to @FaithJupiter for bringing the story to our attention]

[Bing translated – its a bit difficult to read and does not flow fully]

By Nadine Raad –

In Paris, to french and foreign journalists, a family of 5 members who came from the Mosul region testified yesterday in a room of the Town Hall in the 16th arrondissement of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State jihadists on the Nineveh Plain to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Christians and yazidis.

The head of the family, Nabil Younan, told that among other barbarities, the terrorists of the Islamic State have sold at auction in a public square of Mosul just three days ago, 700 women yazidies at an average price of $ 150 per slave.

“This happened in public view, and with the knowledge of the international community”, he said, before launching a call for action so that immediate intervention prevents such acts to continue.

They strip the Christians of all Jewelry and belongings

Other evidence were heard, including that of R.P. Amir Geagea, top Dominican in Baghdad, and that of Dominican, Father Anis Hanna, both contacted by telephone and interviewed. They confirmed the testimonies already published in our columns, evoking among others dams established by the IC to the outputs of Mosul so Islamists can strip the Christians. “They took from women anything from rings to bracelets and necklaces from children”, he said, denouncing the passage the abandonment by the Kurdish peshmergas of their positions in Christian villages in Nineveh.

“It was as if they [Kurds] invited the killers of IS to occupy our villages,” said one witness that questioned the usefulness of a shipment of French arms to the Kurds. In this regard, one of the speakers from the Chredo recalled that this abandonment of the peshmergas intervened almost in the wake of maintenance telephone between french presidents François Holland and Kurdish Massud Barzani, the first promising French weapons at the second, at the same time as a humanitarian assistance to the displaced yazidis. In its edition of August 15, reported L’Orient Le Jour.

Adult Christians in mass circumcisions

Contacted by telephone, other witnesses have reported that the Islamic State ordered the circumcision of the child or adult Christians who remained in Mosul.

Mass of circumcisions were organized by the hordes of the IS, adult Christians were circumcised without any anesthesia.

Very few Assyrian Christians stayed in Mosul after ISIS gave them a deadline to convert, pay jizya, leave or die (AINA 2014-07-20).

The report also states that ISIS sold 700 Yazidi women for $150 each in a public slave auction in Mosul. – Link

Tunisian report claims these are Yazidi women captured as salves and transported to be sold in a Mosul market for $150 each.

Another translation from facebook gives this perspective on the same article which was a bit challenge to translate through Google or Bing:

Terrifying facts revealed about “Daash” [the Arab term for ISIS] in Paris from the lips of Iraqi Christians that have recently arrived to France, and appealed to the international community to move quickly to the evacuation of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities who are stuck in the Nineveh Plains. Among the things that were revealed was of a huge sale of Yazidi women, and forced circumcision of women and men, prevention of watching television, and many other implementations that restricted the rights of the persecuted.

The President of the organization “Christians of the East at risk,” Patrick Karam, spoke about French political and humanitarian efforts, and that France was the first European country to send emergency aid.

Karam added: “We believe that the priority at the moment is how to work to break the cordon, which is governed by force of arms and intimidation of Daash forces in the Nineveh Plain, and at the same time landing aid by air.

For the situation of Christians and Yazidis trapped in the Plane of Nineveh, we contacted the supervisor of the conference, La Leche Yako, over the phone one of the Christians trapped there, and a father Anis Hanna Aldmanaki.

He spoke in French to the French media about the suffering of Christians and other minorities, and that they had been forced to sleep in the open, and the cases of deaths exceeded the hundreds, and then I asked him about the situation there, and if the forces of the Islamic State “Daash” still pose a threat to them and to the rest of the minorities, especially the Yazidis?

The father Anis Hanna, stressed that the danger continues to exist in the Nineveh Plain, and there are families forcibly displaced from villages and rural areas and cities. He stressed that the danger of Daash (ISIS) is terribly large.

He continued, saying: “They are telling us to convert to Islam by force and it is mandatory to pay [jizya] and women are taken by force for female circumcision. This does not happen with Christians only, but with the Yazidis, where Daash took more than 700 women to be sold at an auction in the center of Mosul’s “conservative” area.”

“The girl’s were priced each equal to $150, in addition to the imposition of forced circumcision of women and a lot of laws and rules implemented on them by Daash.”

At the end of the conference one of the Christian families that have managed to escape to France made an urgent appeal to the international community calling for help for those who are still left in the Nineveh Plains besieged by Daash forces.

She said that our women are sold, will the conscience of the world accept if they had to be sold, like the innocent Christians, Yazidis and other minorities that die in the strikes of Daash.

In conclusion, the lawyer in charge of the affairs of the organization, known for its advocacy for refugees, idly Semitic, saying: “The international conference will be held soon in Geneva to address the situation of Christians and minorities in the Middle East.” He called for the intensification of efforts to eliminate the expansion of the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

by

k.jagadeesh

Yazidis Commit Mass- Suicide After Rape by Islamic State Fighters

Yazidis Commit Mass-

Suicide After Rape by 

Islamic State Fighters

Are all those blond Yazidis remnants from centuries of Islamic slave raids on Europe?

While the kurds are facing their own challenges against ISIS, some escaped Christians from ISIS slaughters gave testimony that Kurdish military basically helped ISIS find the Christians for ISIS to kidnap, and were not fully engaged in battling ISIS. Its not fully clear whether the Kurdish fighters had acted out of fear or out of intent.
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Yazidis Commit Mass-Suicide After Rape by Islamic State Fighters

Kurds claim further evidence of ‘genocide’, as Islamic State slaughters men who won’t convert, kidnaps women, children.

By Ari Soffer

First Publish: 8/17/2014, 1:58 PM

Yazidi refugees in Iraq. Reuters

In yet another harrowing chapter in the tragic plight of Iraq’s Kurdish Yazidi population, eyewitnesses have described how girls raped by Muslim fighters from the “Islamic State” (formerly ISIS) committed suicide en-masse after returning to their families, as evidence of systematic rape by Islamists against non-Muslims continue to surface.

Among the tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees trapped in the Shingal mountains while fleeing IS’s deadly advance through Iraq, several survivors told Kurdish Rudaw TV how a group of three girls were returned after being abducted and raped – only to hurl themselves off a cliff after being traumatized by their ordeal.

A Kurdish reporter said the mother of one of the girls had given an interview in front of the camera, but claimed Kurdish fighters from the YPG militia had seized the camera and erased the interview – possibly in an attempt to avoid sowing panic.

The mother reportedly told of how in their desperation the girls begged other refugees to kill them, but when no one would comply they killed themselves.

The YPG is the dominant Kurdish force in Syria and has taken control of some areas across the border in Iraq since IS swept away Iraqi forces earlier in the summer. It has been credited with putting up a stiff resistance against Islamist forces and helping to save many Yazidi and Christian refugees, but has also criticized as authoritarian by its opponents.

Another woman said she also witnessed what happened to the girls.

“They [IS] took the girls by force and raped them, and after they returned they killed themselves,” she said.

Some Kurds say the systematic rape of Yazidi women is yet more evidence of no less than a genocide against their people by IS.

As the Islamic State rampages through northern Iraq, witnesses say they have made a point of slaughtering any men who refuse to convert to Islam, and taking women and children as slaves. In one incident on Friday, 80 Yazidi men were executed and around 100 women and children kidnapped in the tiny Yazidi village of Kojo in northern Iraq.

The Yazidi religion is indigenous to Kurdistan, and Yazidis themselves are  ethnically-Kurdish. But unlike many other Kurds, they largely avoided intermarriage with surrounding Arab tribes and thus a many of them maintained a strikingly fair “Aryan” complexion, with blond hair and blue eyes. By raping their women, IS fighters “complement” the slaughter and forced-conversions of the Yazidis by impregnating them and breaking their bloodline, according to one leading Kurdish activist.

“The Kurds and Yazidis are originally Aryans. But because the Yazidis are such a closed community they have retained a fairer complexion, blonder hair and bluer eyes. They don’t marry non-Yazidis,” Adnan Kochar, chairman of the Kurdish Cultural Centre in London, explained to the Daily Mail.

“ISIS have taken around 300 women from Sinjar to give to jihadists to marry and make pregnant to have a Muslim child. If they can’t kill all Yazidis, they will try to smash the blond bloodline,” he said.

Last week, the Special Representative of the UN’s Secretary-General on Sexual Violence (SRSG) in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov condemned “sexual violence” being employed by Islamic State terrorists against non-Muslim women and children.

“We are gravely concerned by continued reports of acts of violence, including sexual violence against women and teenage girls and boys belonging to Iraqi minorities,” read a joint-statement.

“Atrocious accounts of abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner,” Ms. Bangura and Mr. Mladenov added, saying that some 1,500 Yazidi and Christian persons may have been forced into sexual slavery. That number is now likely to be much higher as Islamists have since made further gains.

But on Sunday Kurdish Peshmerga forces, aided by US airstrikes, have reportedly made gains and are advancing on the strategically-important Mosul Dam, which was seized by IS on August 7.

Many Yazidi men have enlisted to Peshmerga forces to help push back the Islamists and reclaim their homeland from IS’s self-styled “Caliphate”.

by

k.jagadeesh

Yazidi survival story: Jihadist raped children and sold them ‘for as little as a pack of cigarettes’

Yazidi survival story: 

Jihadist raped children and 

sold them ‘for as little as a 

pack of cigarettes’

Posted on July 2, 2015 by ADMINLeave a comment

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.

Survivors: Swedish-Kurdish airworker Delal Sindy is pictured with a group of escaped Yazidi slaves, including Nergiz, 36, (centre in blue top) who was held as a slave with her entire family, and a young woman (far right) who had been raped and tortured by ISIS soldiers

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.

Documenting the horrors: Delal Sindy, 23, an aidworker in Iraqi Kurdistan, has relayed the story of Bahar after helping the teenager in the wake of her ordeal

Brave: Ms Sindy with Nergiz’s eight-year-old daughter who had to be hidden under mattresses and wool in order to  save her from the same fate as her sister who was kidnapped sold as a sex slave

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.

A group of captured Yazidi and Christian women are chained together and marched to a sickening sex slave market where they are sold to become wives for Islamic State fighters

Displaced women and children from the minority Yazidi sect. In Raqqa, kidnapped women and any opponents of the ISIS regime are forced into sex slavery and expected to satisfy fighters returning from battles

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.

Kurdish militia units like the YPG have been battling advancing ISIS militants in the region

Flying high, the People’s Protection Unit’s (YPG) flag flutters in Tal Abyad, where Kurdish forces recently gained significant ground

A YPG solider cautiously looks for enemy fighters whilst defending Hasakah. Many refugees have fled over fears that ISIS will carry out a massacre if they take 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

Mother giving birth naturally by water birth.

Mother giving birth naturally by water birth.

Being a photographer is one of the greatest jobs in the world. You get the chance to capture wonderful moments in your camera which eventually will become a great memory to treasure. 

Kathy Rosario of K Ro Photography has a huge interest in capturing exceptional pregnancy, childbirths and babies. Stunning photos were being produced whenever she uses the magic of her profession with the help of her camera. 

But for Kathy, capturing a water birth from her friend who is also a fellow photographer is a new thing. So she decided to grab the opportunity to take photos in a different degree. 

Not all people are qualified to undergo a water birth, but her friend is really suitable to gave birth with this unique way.  

"I have photographed quite a few births already, but nothing quite compared to the serenity of a home water birth." exclaimed by Kathy.

The stages that her friend undergone was captured. She was seen with a treat of popsicle to cope up with the pain of her labor.

After the baby had gone out, the mom took it and held it on her arms. It was a sweet moment between the mother and the child. It was her third baby. After having 2 handsome sons, she finally gave birth to a healthy beautiful girl. 

All the pain and sufferings had gone away when she say her little angel. A sweet little smile was flashed upon the face of the mother. 

by

k.jagadeesh