(Photo: Reuters/Ako Rasheed)
Members of the minority Yazidi sect who were newly released hug each other on the outskirts of Kirkuk, April 8, 2015. More than 200 elderly and infirm Yazidis were freed on Wednesday by Islamic State militants who had been holding them captive since overrunning their villages in northwestern Iraq last summer.
Christian Post Report – Up to as many as 60 girls and women kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria die by suicide each month after suffering physical and sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS jihadis, an aid worker stationed in Iraq has claimed.
The aid worker, who’s referenced by the name of Yousif, told the British news site The Express that he has witnessed women who are subject to rape, forced marriage and physical assault by ISIS militants killing themselves at a rate of one or two per day in order to escape their horrific ordeals.
“Everyday between one or two commit suicide,” Yousif explained. “There are different methods they use inside there, whether they hang themselves, cut themselves, different ways they do it.”
As the militant group took over large portions of Syria and Iraq last summer, enslaved numerous religious minority women and killed religious minority men, It has been widely reported that many ISIS female captives commit suicide out of fear of being raped or in the aftermath of rape and abuse. But now, Yousif’s claim provides a general idea as to the frequency that ISIS hostage suicides occur.
Yousif, who is based out of Canada, added that many of ISIS’ female captives end their lives not only because of the horrible abuse they suffered but also because of “shame and honour.”
Religious minority women, some being as young as 8 years old, are passed around, sold, beaten, tortured and shared sexually by multiple ISIS fighters, who claim that it is their Allah-given right to hold infidel women as sex slaves and property.
Many ISIS female captives are afraid that even if they are able to escape and reunite with their families, their families will not accept them because they either had sex with jihadis or because they are pregnant, Yousif said.
“They don’t have hope that their people will accept them, at the same time they don’t want their babies,” Yousif asserted.
In an interview with thestar.com, Yousif explained that even the husbands of escaped ISIS hostages won’t accept them back if they are pregnant.
“If they are married, their husbands won’t take them back if they are pregnant. And, it’s clear that the babies will never be accepted,” Yousif said. “I don’t know what the future would be for their babies. The girls and women don’t want them. They suffered so much they just want to forget.”
Yousif explained that many girls who are impregnated by militants are told to abort their babies or leave their newborns at orphanages.
“There were different reactions, some of them [among the Yazidi community] said abort the babies. Others said ‘we don’t want to do anything with them,’ some of them said they want them [the mothers] to get married to young people,” Yousif stated.
Yousif also spoke of the 9-year-old Yazidi girl who was raped and impregnated by as many as 10 ISIS fighters.
“ISIS was the father,” Yousif stated. “She had been raped by more than nine or 10 men.”
Yousif also said that since the girl is so young, she could die if she attempts to give birth.
“This girl is so young she could die if she delivers a baby,” Yousif told thestar.com. “Even a caesarian section is dangerous. The abuse she has suffered left her mentally and physically traumatised.”
A recently released report by the Human Rights Watch, which features interviews with women who were sexually enslaved by ISIS and were fortunate enough to escape, states that ISIS militants sometimes hold lottery drawigns to determine which girls the fighters will be able to take home as property.
Additionally, the report found that ISIS militants beat, torture, underfeed and electrocute enslaved religious minority women.
“Later that day they [ISIS fighters] made a lottery of our names and started to choose women by drawing out the names. The man who selected me, Abu Ghufran, forced me to bathe, but while I was in the bathroom I tried to kill myself,” 31-year-old Rashida told HRW. “I had found some poison in the house, and took it with me to the bathroom. I knew it was toxic because of its smell. I distributed it to the rest of the girls and we each mixed some with water in the bathroom and drank it. None of us died but we all got sick, some collapsed.”
Source : Christian Post