Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Piling]

Perhaps they waited for the withdrawal of PKK (if PKK really did it).

[Anthea]

Perhaps they waited for the withdrawal of PKK (if PKK really did it).

Many people, including the PKK and the media, seem to use the Yazidis for propaganda purposes

So few people genuinely care

[Anthea]

Yazidi child reunited with family after being sold by ISIS to strangers



RASHIDIYA, IRAQ // His name was Ayman, but the couple who brought the boy home to their Iraqi village after buying him for $500 called him Ahmed.

ISIS militants had killed or enslaved Ayman’s parents in their purge of the Yazidi religious minority to which he belongs, then sold the four-year-old to Umm and Abu Ahmed, who are Muslims.

For the 18 months he lived with the couple, his relatives assumed he was dead, one of thousands of Yazidis who have been missing since the militants overran their homes in what the United Nations has labelled genocide.

When Iraqi forces retook east Mosul and the surrounding area last week, they found Ayman and returned him to what is left of his family. While their reunion was full of joy, breaking the bond between Ayman and his adoptive parents brought new sorrow.

At his home in Rashidiya, north of Mosul, Abu Ahmed swiped through photographs of the boy on his phone, and empties a box of the toys Ayman played with, including a children’s book for learning Arabic script.

The windows of the couple’s one-story home on the eastern bank of the Tigris river have been shattered by a blast that destroyed their neighbour’s house, evidence of the fierce fighting that will continue when the army attacks the western side, which ISIS still controls.

It was Umm Ahmed’s idea to adopt a child. The couple were childless and she heard ISIS was selling orphans in the town of Tel Afar, some 40km to the west.

"My objective was to win favour (with God)," said Umm Ahmed. To be honest, I wanted to teach him my religion, Islam."

Her husband, a government employee, was against the idea but could not dissuade his wife, who went alone to get the boy from an orphanage run by the militants, paying for him with her earnings as a teacher.

Although the boy cried and did not want to go with her, she coaxed him, saying: "Come, you will be my child. We will live together and I will buy you everything."

Gradually he grew accustomed to his adoptive parents, who taught him Arabic instead of the Kurdish dialect spoken by Yazidis. They told people he was a nephew they had taken in and enrolled him at the local school under the name Ahmed Shareef, but mostly he was kept indoors.

"He was really smart. I taught him to pray and perform ablutions. Do you know how much of the Quran he memorised?" Umm Ahmed said.

They did not want him to forget who he was and encouraged him to speak about life in his village of Hardan. But she said: "I always warned him not to tell anyone (he was Yazidi)."

ISIS imposed a radical version of Islam in Mosul after establishing the city as its de facto capital, banning cigarettes, televisions and radios, and forcing men to grow beards and women to cover from head to toe.

The Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions, were branded devil-worshippers.

Sometimes Ayman asked about the rest of his family but Umm and Abu Ahmed knew nothing of their fate, save for a teenage sister who was taken as a slave by a militant from Tel Afar. He brought her to visit several times but nothing is known of her now. A half-brother of \ayman was also sold from the orphanage but his whereabouts too are unknown.

As the US-backed campaign to drive ISIL out of Mosul gathered pace and the Iraqi army’s ninth division reached Rashidiya, things began to unravel for Umm and Abu Ahmed.

On entering the village, a commander received a tip that a Yazidi boy was being held there and dispatched soldiers to retrieve him. The couple had no choice but to give him up. A video clip of the moment they were parted shows Ayman clinging to Umm Ahmed and crying and Umm Ahmed pleading with the soldiers as she tries to comfort him despite her own distress, saying "You will go and see your mother now ... and when you grow up you will come and see me".

Ayman’s parents and most other relatives are still missing, but his grandmother and uncle live on the edge of one of several camps to which the Yazidi community has been displaced en masse, about 50km away from Rashidiya.

Samir Rasho Khalaf thought his nephew had been killed until he saw a post on Facebook on January 28 telling of a Yazidi child named Ayman Ameen Barakat who had been found.

"I was stunned," said Mr Khalaf. "It’s a miracle: he came back from the dead."

That same night, they were reunited.

"We all cried," said Major Wathiq Amjad Naathar, the army official who oversaw the handover. That night, Ayman was beside himself and begged to be returned to Umm Ahmed, but now seems happy and calm.

Asked if he had been happy with his adoptive parents, he said yes. Asked if he was happy to be back with his real family, he said yes too.

Mr Khalaf said he was grateful to Umm and Abu Ahmed for keeping Ayman safe and healthy, and that, unlike so many other Yazidi boys abducted by ISIL, he was not forced to train as a fighter.

But he was angry the couple did not try harder to find his family to say he was alive and well, and has refused to allow them to talk to Ayman, .

"We don’t mention them (his adoptive parents) so he will forget them," he said.

Umm Ahmed said he will never forget them, however, just as they will not forget him. "I expect he will return," she said.

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle- ... ngers#full

[Anthea]

2 Êzidî women rescued from ISIS reunite with their people

We are on journey from Qamishlo to Derik with the two Êzidî women that were rescued from ISIS during Raqqa Operation. The driver of the car belonging to an institution affiliated with the Democratic Autonomous Administration tells me that the two Êzidî women were rescued from ISIS. The women are headed to the Newroz Camp in Derik in order to reach Shengal Women’s Assembly. I change my plans in order to go to the camp with these two women. We chat along the way. Neither of them thinks that there is any hope left for them. They say that the YPG rescued them.

The paths of H.N. and S.H., who were captured by ISIS when the gangs attacked Shengal, crossed when YPG forces rescued them during Raqqa operation. Their pain and experiences are similar.

H.N. has 7 children and is 35 years old. S.H. is only 19 years old. H.N. holds her head high when she speaks, and says “This is not our shame, those that did this to us should be ashamed.” S.H. is shy and ashamed, and has difficulty talking about her experience. As N.H. shares her experience, she tells S.H to “tell her story so everyone hears it, revenge is taken from the dogs that did this to us, and other women get rescued.”

‘ISIS HAS HER 3 CHILDREN AND HUSBAND’

ISIS has kept 3 of H.N.’s 7 children as prisoner since the day of the massacre, when H.N. was captured by the gangs as she tried to leave Shengal. H.N. describes her experience in the following way:

“Everybody escaped when ISIS attacked. We tried to flee with our car but they stopped us at the checkpoint. They separated men from women. In the evening, they took us to Tal Afar. They put women and children in a house. They separated older boys from the women and put us in Banush Prison. We stayed there for 8 days. Later, warplanes hit the prison and they took us to Tal Afar where they placed us in a school. They said that we were not worth anything and took us to Shia village. They picked young girls for themselves and took my daughter away from me. They were taking young girls to Syria and selling them there. Later, they took us to Mosul and separated us from older women, whom they kept in Iraq because they thought they would not be useful. They sent young girls and women to Syria and sent me and my children there too. In Syria, they took two of my sons away from me.”

‘WE WERE SOLD AS SLAVES’

H.N. stated that they had a more difficult time in Syria where their children were sold as slaves in markets several times. H.N. noted that they lived in fear and pain, remarking that the gangs beat her and children as they said ‘you are all infidels.’ H.N. Told that: “They took us to a place in Syria and later to Raqqa. After we stayed in an underground prison in Raqqa for a while, they took us to Tetmur and later to somewhere else. They took our clothes off and made us walk in a square full of ISIS gangs. They read our names including mine and sold me to a guy there. I stayed with him for two months. He was Syrian. Then, there was a problem between that man and his superiors. He gave me to a Sudanese. That man took me and my children to Bab. We later went to Raqqa. Later, I found out that my daughter had been sold to a guy. They had already taken my son away from me in Tetmur. They took my other son later in Raqqa.”

‘THEY MAKE OUR BOYS JIHADIS’

H.N. stated that Êzidî boys were taken from their mothers at a young age to be trained as jihadis that will attack their own people, while Êzidî girls were taken to be sold in markets as soon as they had their first periods. H.N. said that boys were trained to be monsters and girls were sold to ISIS gangs. H.N. remarked that she and other enslaved women were taken to the houses of ISIS members’ families, where the gangs’ wives beat them and their children.

‘I GOT BRAVE WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THE YPG WAS NEAR’

H.N. told that she escaped from the man that bought her as a slave and reached YPG forces. She describes her escape in the following way: “I heard about the Raqqa operation when the guy that bought me was speaking to another ISIS member. They said that YPG was close and there was movement in the city. Some people were leaving the city. One night, my children and I wore niqabs and mixed in with the population when we left the house. We reached where the comrades were. If they had not fought against ISIS, we would not have gotten out of there. I did not have much courage before, but I got brave when I found out that the YPG was near. Our lives were worse than death.”

‘THEY CANNOT HOLD THEIR TEARS AT THE CAMP’

Despite H.N.’s efforts, S.H. is unable to share her story and her sentences are left unfinished. As she chats in the car, she also takes care of her children. When we reach Newroz Camp, it was already dark. Camp officials greet us when our car stops at the camp. Everyone welcomes the two women with compassion. They take us to warm place because of the cold weather. Camp dwellers that are curious about their relatives who are still held by ISIS or that want to celebrate the two women begin to visit us.

Firstly, the mothers in white dresses that are part of the Newroz Camp Women’s Assembly visit the two women. H.N., who has not shed a single tear on the road as she told me her story, and S.H. breaks into tears as the mothers hug and console them. Later, the women begin to chat about ISIS’ attack on Shengal and the experience of captive Êzidîs. They all express their anger at the KDP for abandoning them and enabling ISIS to capture them.

S.H. SHARES HER EXPERIENCE

The conversation gets deeper with the arrival of Zehra, who is a member of the Shengal Constituent Assembly and the Êzidxan Free Women’s Movement. S.H. now begins to share her experience as other women join in the conversation.

S.H. says that she and her father fell captive to ISIS gangs and were told to follow them until they are taken to their new houses. S.H. States: “I was separated from my father there and I was taken to Mosul, where I reunited with my father for only 10 days. I was then taken to a place in Syria and later to Deir ez-Zor, where I was sold to a gang member. I was sold to different men across Syria and eventually arrived in Aleppo, where I was sold to someone from Raqqa who took me to Raqqa. I was constantly beaten in addition to being sold as a slave, and I was sold to 5 different people in total. There were many young girls like me. Life had no meaning for us. I escaped and reached the YPG.”

All the women in the room feel the same pain and express their anger with deep breaths. One of the mothers say “we are a people that does not want anything bad for anyone. They will pay for what they did to us one day. ISIS dogs and the KDP that abandoned us to ISIS will be destroyed because of what they did to us.”

Zehra says that YJŞ has been established and Êzidî women now have the strength to defend themselves as they reached a certain level of mobilization. S.H. says that YPG and YPJ fighters told her that Êzidî women began to fight ISIS gangs themselves.

As hours pass, more visitors come and I leave the two women. Next day, like all Êzidî women rescued from ISIS, H.N. and S.H. as well as their children are handed over to Shengal Women’s Assembly and sent to Shengal.

[Anthea]

Heartwarming: boy 6 reunited with his real family

A young boy, called Ayman, was sold to a Muslim couple when he was just four
The youngster, now six, was bought for $500 and lived in Rashidiya in Iraq
Ayman's family thought he was dead but they have now been reunited with him

This is the heartwarming moment a six-year-old boy was reunited with his family after ISIS killed his parents and sold him for $500.



The youngster, called Ayman, was sold to Muslim couple Umm and Abu Ahmed when he was just four.

They named him Ahmed after Islamic State militants killed or enslaved his parents in their purge of the Yazidis religious minority.

He lived with the couple for 18 months in Rashidiya, north of Mosul, Iraq, and his relatives assumed that he was dead as several thousand Yazidis are missing.

When Iraqi forces retook east Mosul and the surrounding area last week, they found Ayman and returned him to what is left of his family.

Ayman's parents and most other relatives are still missing, but his grandmother and uncle live on the edge of one of several camps to which the Yazidi community has been displaced en masse, about 50 km (30 miles) away from Rashidiya.

Samir Rasho Khalaf thought his nephew had been killed until he saw a post on Facebook on January 28 that a Yazidi child named Ayman Ameen Barakat had been found.

Mr Khalaf said: 'I was stunned. It's a miracle - he came back from the dead.'

That same night, they were reunited. In a video, his grandmother strikes herself on the head repeatedly when she sees the boy, picking him up and wailing in disbelief.

Major Wathiq Amjad Naathar, the army official who oversaw the handover, said: 'We all cried.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... amily.html

[Anthea]

When Isis militants invaded Sinjar in Iraq they took many young Yazidi women and girls – some as young as nine years old – as sexual slaves and forced them to convert to Islam

These two women escaped and returned to their home village on Mount Sinjar. Here they discuss their traumatic experience, their struggle to be accepted back by their community and the women and girls still held by Isis

phpBB [video]

Direct link:

https://youtu.be/aB8J4KOXsKc

[Anthea]

Lack of services means many Yezidis not yet willing to go home

phpBB [video]

Many Yezidis have not been able to return to their homes in the Shingal region despite their area being free for more than a year.

Many of them cite lack of public services as the reason for not returning home yet, and some believe with the war going on against ISIS not far away in Mosul, it might not be a good time to leave the safety of refugee camps.

The town of Shingal is one of the main places of the Yezidi community and Snune, considered one of the biggest towns in Iraq is another where only 8,000 people are said have returned so far.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/130220171

[Anthea]

Injured Yazidi toddler to reunite with family

After about four months apart, 2-year-old Dilbireen Muhsin soon may be reunited with his family.

The Yazidi boy, whose name means ‘wounded heart’ in Kurdish, was brought to the United States late last year to receive medical treatment for severe burns on his face.

He was left in the care of a Michigan woman while his parents and newborn brother were in their native Iraq, trying to be by Dilbireen’s side and, mostly recently, facing President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Now, Dilbireen’s parents and brother have been issued visas to come to the United States, a joyous turn of events for a family that has experienced suffering.

“We have confirmation that they have visas in hand, which is great news, and so now we’re organizing travel for them to come to Boston and organizing for Dilbireen to come to Boston from Michigan and resume his treatment,” said Scott LaStaiti, a Los Angeles-based film producer and philanthropist who helped get Dilbireen medical care. “It’s both exciting, because the family will be reunited, and very important, because now he can resume the treatment that he is desperately in need of.”

“The plight of his people”

Dilbireen was one of many Yazidi children needing medical attention when LaStaiti traveled to northern Iraq with Sally Becker, founder of the UK-based charity Road to Peace, in 2015.

They traveled to northern Iraq to visit sick and orphaned Yazidi children whose families had fled their homes due to ISIS attacks and were staying at camps for internally displaced persons, Becker said.

The US declared last year that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis, a minority group in Iraq.

Iraqi diplomat Breen Tahseen, son of Yazidi leader Prince Tahseen Bek, invited Becker to visit the camps, where she came face-to-face with many children in need of serious medical attention they couldn’t receive in the surrounding region.

“I arranged to meet with members of Parliament to discuss the possibility of bringing some of the children to Britain but, with a referendum on Brexit looming, it was clear that this was not a priority,” Becker said.

In the meantime, her colleague Dr. Shirzad Khaleel, medical coordinator for Road to Peace, gathered names and medical reports for the children.

Khaleel wrote, in an email, although he has no money to give to the children, he worked as volunteer to help them.

“There were hundreds of cases, but we had to identify which of them would benefit most from treatment abroad, and top of the list was Dilbireen,” Becker said.

Dilbireen had been severely burned last year when a heater malfunctioned, exploded and set his crib ablaze.

His mother, Flosa Khalaf, was baking bread outside to celebrate Dilbireen’s first birthday when the fire erupted.

Flames from the heater severely burned Dilbireen’s face and feet, but a blanket protected the rest of his body.

To this day, Dilbireen enjoys cuddling with blankets.

“Born in a camp where his parents have been living since fleeing their home on Sinjar mountain, this amazing and resilient little boy is a symbol of the suffering of the Yazidis and other religious minorities in the region,” Becker said. “The Yazidis have been victims of many genocides over the centuries, and there are only around 800,000 left in the world. So, this mission isn’t just about helping Dilbireen. It’s about highlighting the plight of his people.”

Dilbireen’s “remarkable spirit”

Becker and LaStaiti were able to secure treatment for Dilbireen and a few other children at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston, with help from Sameer Sabir, a Boston-based entrepreneur in the field of wound healing and burn treatment.

Sabir and LaStaiti met through Greg Bailey, a business partner of LaStaiti’s who has also been instrumental in helping Dilbireen.

“I acted as a conduit to help these guys connect to the folks at Boston Shriners, who are amazing people,” Sabir said. “It really does sort of take a village to make something like this happen, even for one child.”

In October, Dilbireen and his father, Ajeel Muhsin, flew from Iraq to the United States for Dilbireen’s first round of surgeries.

Dilbireen’s mother stayed in Iraq, as she was due to give birth to Dilbireen’s brother in November.

Doctors in Boston first saw Dilbireen on October 6 and developed a treatment plan that included a series of surgeries to restore his facial appearance and function, such as being able to open and close his mouth.

Muhsin planned to return to Iraq for the baby’s birth, and then the family together would travel to the US for Dilbireen’s additional surgeries.

They would return to Iraq once Dilbireen was completely treated.

News about Dilbireen spread across the Yazidi community in the United States.

Saman Ali, a 31-year-old Yazidi, was eager to help when he heard about how Muhsin and Dilbireen needed an interpreter while they were in Boston for the boy’s first round of surgeries.

Ali graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a master’s degree in law in 2015.

He drove seven or eight hours from State College, Pennsylvania to Boston to help Muhsin and Dilbireen with translations, Becker said.

“He was a blessing in disguise. I don’t know how we could have managed without him,” said Tatyana Goldwyn, widow of plastic surgeon Robert Goldwyn, who helped raise funds and find housing for Muhsin and Dilbireen in Boston.

She is based in the greater Boston area and continues to help Dilbireen’s family.

“The father was a very young man and was alone here, and the child had been traumatized by the separation from his mother,” Goldwyn said. “We found an apartment that was donated during their stay. We provided everything from toothpaste to formula, you name it.”

The organization House of Peace also has helped provide housing for Dilbireen and his father.

Ron Burkle, an American investor and philanthropist, made a generous donation to help Dilbireen and his family, LaStaiti, the film producer, said.

LaStaiti added he made the connection to Burkle through British film producer Lex Lutzus, who helped raise funds.

“For a child who has been through so much, he has such a remarkable spirit and was always smiling and always happy, which was just very uplifting, actually,” Sabir said of Dilbireen.

In November, Dilbireen moved to Lansing, Michigan to stay with Adlay Kejjan, director of the Yazidi American Women Organization, while he recovered after his first round of surgeries.

Muhsin, the boy’s father, traveled to Iraq to be with Khalaf while she gave birth to Dilbireen’s brother on November 9.

The family named the baby Trump.

“America is helping us to do surgery on our boy,” Muhsin said in an interview from Iraq two weeks ago.

His comments were translated from Kurdish.

“We want to show our appreciation to America for what they are doing for our boy.”

Then, chaos and confusion erupted.

A young family to be reunited

When Muhsin and Khalaf applied for a passport and visa for baby Trump to travel to the US to see his brother last month, their application was denied, and then the visas they already had were revoked.

Though Trump was not in office when Dilbireen’s family was initially denied visas, the executive order that was signed January 27 to keep certain people from entering the country had the family worried.

The order indicated immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia – were unable to enter the country for at least the next 90 days.

Dilbireen’s parents submitted new applications to the US consulate in Erbil, Iraq but, when they arrived at the consulate for an appointment last week, they were refused entry.

Then, this week, they were granted their visas.

“His mom, Flosa, and his father, Ajeel, and his baby brother, Trump, were granted their visas at the US consulate in Erbil, and they did walk out yesterday with visas actually stamped in their passports,” LaStaiti said Monday.

All three visas for Muhsin, Khalaf and baby Trump have been approved, a spokeswoman for Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s office said Monday.

The Michigan Democrat’s office confirmed it received information from the State Department the visas were approved this week.

Meanwhile, Kejjan, a paramedic and pilot in Michigan who is also Yazidi, is continuing to care for Dilbireen until his family arrives in the US.

“If he was older, he would definitely say ‘I want my parents, my mom and dad.’ He’s so young, and he doesn’t understand,” Kejjan said in an exclusive interview with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta two weeks ago.

“It takes a village”

LaStaiti, the film producer, and Becker, founder of Road to Peace, both said they are grateful for Kejjan and many others who have helped Dilbireen along this journey.

“This experience has definitely been bigger than any one person. It’s fair to use that expression, it takes a village,” LaStaiti said. “I hope we can create a sustainable model so that resources are readily available for these children in need. I hope that now that we have made these contacts and connections on both the fund-raising side and on the hospital side, it will be easier to place kids as we identify them.”

It cost about $15,000 and involved dozens of people to arrange treatment for Dilbireen and reunite him with his family, Becker said.

“I have been doing this since 1993, when I found injured kids in the besieged city of Mostar. Back then, it was Christians and Muslims. Now, it’s the Yazidis,” she said. “Race or religion is irrelevant to me. These are innocent victims of a war, not of their making and beyond their understanding.”

Many other refugee children in Iraq are in need of specialized medical attention, said Becker, who has identified about 87.

Becker said she is working with local partners, the Heraion Foundation, to open a children’s hospital in northern Iraq so children will no longer need to travel around the world for specialized medical attention.

Becker said her inspiration comes from children like Dilbireen.

Link to Article - Videos:

http://kfor.com/2017/02/14/injured-yazi ... th-family/

Anthea: There are many accidents and illnesses in the camps - the Yazidis deserve better treatment

[Anthea]

KRG asks for help freeing Yezidi children brainwashed by ISIS

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has urged the international community to help children who have been subjected to years of brainwashing and military training by ISIS after the extremist group released a propaganda video claiming to depict two Yezidi suicide bombers.

The head of the KRG’s Yezidi affairs office described the children as “time bombs,” saying that they pose a threat to the world.

"Unfortunately, we several times through the media have urged the world that they are like time bombs, if they are not defused they will explode in Europe or somewhere else. Therefore we have asked for many times to help them escape even if it is through particular operations,” said Khairi Botani.

"These children are actually brainwashed and so far 10 of them have been sent to Germany in accordance with a joint program between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the German government to receive physiological treatment in order to bring them back to their normal life," he added.

Botani made his comments in response to a new ISIS propaganda video purportedly showing two Yezidi boys carry out suicide attacks.

Two Yezidi boys appeared in the 30 minutes long video, speaking in Kurdish. The two are brothers from Shingal. In the video, they recalled the time when they were in Shingal, saying that they had been living in ignorance and worshiping Satan, but after studying under ISIS they converted to Islam and registered their names as suicide bombers.

The video ends with footage of two apparent car bombs, reportedly being driven by the two boys. It is not clear as to who they targeted and where it took place.

Speaking about the video footage, Botani told Rudaw that more than 1,000 Yezidi children are still being trained by ISIS at their military bases in Iraq and Syria.

"To our knowledge, more than 1,000 Yezidi children are being trained by ISIS. They indoctrinate them in the Islamic Sharia and Jihad theoretically and practically. And they also teach them the means of killing and how to carry out suicide attacks practically," said Botani.

He added that his office has so far been able to rescue 13 of these children.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/150220174

Sadly, there are probably a great many more such children but most are probably still in the hands of ISIS

[Anthea]

Mass rapes of Yazidi women were ‘normal,’
reveals captive Daesh militant

SULAIYMANIYA, Iraq: Militant Amar Hussein says he reads the Qur’an all day in his tiny jail cell to become a better person. He also says he raped more than 200 Yazidi women and others from Iraqi minorities. Heshows few regrets.

Kurdish intelligence authorities gave Reuters rare access to Hussein and another Daesh militant who were both captured during an assault on the city of Kirkuk in October that killed 99 civilians and members of the security forces. Sixty-three Daesh militants died.

Hussein said his emirs, or local Daesh commanders, gave him and others the green light to rape as many Yazidi and other women as they wanted.

“Young men need this,” Hussein told Reuters in an interview after a Kurdish counter-terrorism agent removed a black hood from his head. “This is normal.”

Hussein said he moved from house to house in several Iraqi cities raping women from the Yazidi sect and other minorities at a time when Daesh was grabbing more and more territory from Iraqi security forces.

Kurdish security officials say they have evidence of Hussein raping and killing but they do not know what the scale is.

Reuters could not independently verify Hussein’s account.

Witnesses and Iraqi officials say Daesh fighters raped many Yazidi women after the group rampaged through northern Iraq in 2014. It also abducted many Yazidi women as sex slaves and killed some of their male relatives, they said.

Hussein said he also killed about 500 people since joining Daesh in 2013. “We shot whoever we needed to shoot and beheaded whoever we needed to beheaded,” said Hussein.

He recalled how emirs trained him to kill, which was difficult at first when one person was brought for a practice kill. It became easier day by day. “Seven, eight, ten at a time. Thirty or 40 people. We would take them in the desert and kill them,” said Hussein, an imposing, well-built figure, who was wearing metal handcuffs.

Eventually, he became highly efficient, never hesitating to kill.

“I would sit them down, put a blindfold on them and fire a bullet into their heads,” he said. “It was normal.”
Counter-terrorism agents said Hussein was trouble when he first arrived. “He was so strong he snapped the plastic handcuffs off his wrists,” said one.

Hussein sees himself as a victim of hardship, a product of a broken home and poverty in his hometown of Mosul, where Iraqi forces have launched an offensive against Daesh to dislodge them from their last stronghold in Iraq.

“I had no money. No one to say ‘This is wrong, this is right.’ No jobs. I had friends but no one to give me advice,” said Hussein, who has been held in the cell with a barred window since his capture in October.
Religious slogans are scratched on its cement walls by previous militant prisoners. His only possessions are a thick blanket and a Qur’an. On the floor is a polystyrene plate with broth and some rice. Thick, metal handcuffs hang on a nearby wall.

Hussein, now 21, began his career as a militant when he was just 14, he said. He was drawn to the conflict by his local mosque preacher, then he joined Al-Qaeda and now awaits legal proceedings as a member of Daesh, the successor of Al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch.

Counter-terrorism agents described a second prisoner, Ghaffar Abdel Rahman, as less forthcoming, and said he had revealed little during questioning about his experiences as a checkpoint and logistics man for Daesh. Abdel Rahman, 31, with long hair and beard and a blank stare, gave little away in a separate interview with Reuters.

He admitted to opening fire on security forces in the raid on Kirkuk but says he never killed anyone. He said he and his brother joined Daesh because otherwise, as state employees, they would have been killed by the group.

His Kurdish captors did not comment on his story, but Iraqi authorities are generally skeptical of fighters who say they had no choice.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1055931/middle-east

The best way to punish him would be to give him to the Yazidi female fighters

[Anthea]

New trauma unit to help former Islamic State sex slaves

After their rape and torture by Islamic State extremists for months or years, Yazidi women face ongoing suffering from psychological trauma even if they do manage to escape.

Until now, a lack of psychiatrists and other mental health specialists in northern Iraq meant that many Yazidi women - a minority singled out for especially harsh treatment by ISIS - got little or no help. That's about to change with the establishment of a new psychological training center at the University of Dohuk in Iraq, the first in the entire region.

For Perwin Ali Baku, who escaped ISIS two weeks ago after more than two years in captivity, that can't come soon enough. The trauma of being bought and sold from fighter to fighter and carted from Iraq to Syria and then back again weighs heavy on both her body and her mind.



In this Jan. 11, 2017 photo, 23-year-old Perwin Ali Baku poses for a portrait inside the tent she shares with her family at Karbato camp for civilians displaced by war in Iraq. She recently escaped Islamic State militant captivity alongside her young daughter. A new psychological trauma institute is being established at the university of Dohuk in Iraq, the first in the entire region. The program will train local mental health professionals to treat Islamic State victims, including thousands of Yazidi women and children. (AP Photo/Alice Martins)

Today, when a door slams, the 23-year-old Yazidi woman flashes back to her captors locking away her 3-year-old daughter, captured with her, to torment her. When she hears a loud voice, she cringes at the thought of IS militants barking orders.

"I don't feel right," she said, sitting on a mattress on the floor of her father-in-law's small, canvas-topped Quonset hut in a northern Iraq refugee camp. "I still can't sleep. My body is tense all the time."

The training center is the next phase of an ambitious project funded by the wealthy German state of Baden Wuerttemberg that brought 1,100 women who had escaped Islamic State captivity, primarily Yazidis, to Germany for psychological treatment. The medical head of that project, German psychologist Jan Kizilhan, is also the driving force behind the new institute, which opens at the end of the month.

The program will train local mental health professionals to treat people like Perwin and thousands of Yazidi women, children and other Islamic State victims.

About 1,900 Yazidis have escaped the clutches of IS, but more than 3,000 other women and children are believed to still be held captive, pressed into sexual slavery and subjected to horrific abuse. As the fighting rages on between Iraqi forces and IS in Mosul, only about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Dohuk, the number reaching freedom increases daily.

Right now there are only 26 psychiatrists practicing in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which has a population of 5.5 million people and more than 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced people. None specializes in treating trauma.

Perwin received brief, basic counseling after being freed Dec. 30 from IS near Mosul - "they asked 'Do you sleep well?' and I said 'No, I can't sleep well'" - but nothing else. She looks to her toddler, dressed in a red sweatsuit with her hair in pigtails fastened by cherry bobbles, who popped into the tent only to beat a hasty retreat when she saw strangers.

The child has received no treatment at all.

"She's always scared," Perwin said. "And she's had nothing more than cough medicine."

Fighters from the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, swept into the Sinjar region of northern Iraq in August 2014, an area near the Syrian border that is the Yazidis' ancestral home.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis escaped to Mount Sinjar, where they were surrounded and besieged by Islamic State militants. The U.S., Iraq, Britain, France and Australia flew in water and other supplies, until Kurdish fighters eventually opened a corridor to allow some of them to reach safety.

Casualty estimates vary widely, but the United Nations has called the Islamic State assault genocide, saying the Yazidis' "400,000-strong community had all been displaced, captured or killed." Of the thousands captured by IS, boys were forced to fight for the extremists, men were executed if they didn't convert to Islam - and often executed in any case - and women and girls were sold into slavery.

Those lucky enough to escape are left with deep psychological scars. Kizilhan, a trauma specialist and also a university professor and Mideast expert, has been working tirelessly to help them find support.

"We are talking about general trauma, we are talking about collective trauma and we are talking about genocide," said Kizilhan, who is of Yazidi background and immigrated to Germany at age 6. "That's the reason we have to help if we can - it's our human duty to help them."

The new Institute of Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology at Dohuk University, in cooperation with Germany's University of Tuebingen, will train 30 new professionals over three years. The hope is to extend the program to other regional universities, so after 10 years there could be more than 1,000 psychotherapists in the region.

The first class is made up of 17 women and 13 men, Muslims, Christians and Yazidis, with backgrounds in psychology, nursing, social work and teaching.

Galavej Jaafar Mohemmad, a Kurdish native of Dohuk who was chosen for the inaugural class, already has some psychological training but said she wants more.

"Iraq has moved from one war to another war, but this time is the worst that has ever happened to humans - that's why I want to help," the 45-year-old said. "Even for the women who have come back from Daesh, Daesh has taken their kids, their husbands - they're free but they don't feel free."

In the Sharya camp, one of about two dozen sprawling facilities for internally displaced people in the Dohuk area, 39-year-old Gorwe has just been visited by two sisters-in-law who are receiving treatment in Kizilhan's program in Germany. Psychological treatment has helped them, but she said it "is no use" for her.

"No matter how many doctors I see, I'll still have the same pain inside me," said Gorwe, who asked that her last name not be used out of fear that the Islamic State would harm her relatives still in captivity.

Twenty-four of her family members were taken by Islamic State militants, including herself, but only 14 - all women and children - have returned. The fate of the other 10, including her husband and four of her children, are unknown.

"I will never forget what happened to us as they were selling us and buying us and beating us, I think about it all the time," she said. "How could you forget?"

Link to Full Article - Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/art ... s.html#top

[Anthea]

Yazidi Refugees Plead to Save Their Children From Daesh Slavery

Yazidi refugees currently residing in a camp at Sinjar Mountains in Iraq held a protest rally in order to raise awareness about Daesh terrorists enslaving their children and using them as suicide bombers.

The rally was held following a suicide bombing in Mosul that was perpetrated by Daesh child converts – two young Yazidi boys named Amjad and Asaad.

Many of the Yazidis participating in the rally have had their children kidnapped by Daesh; the grieving parents have no idea whether their sons and daughters are alive or dead, or whether they became slaves or Daesh converts.

The participants of the rally called on the Iraqi government and international organizations to help rescue their kidnapped sons and daughters. The assembled people fear that Daesh terrorists may brainwash their enslaved children and use them as disposable tools to commit more suicide attacks like the one in Mosul.

"Save the thousands (of our children)," the rally participants chanted in hoarse voices.

The Iraqi city of Sinjar was captured by Daesh terrorists early in August 2014. The terrorists have slaughtered thousands of the city's Yazidi residents, and enslaved approximately 5-7 thousand Yazidi women and children.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2017 ... y-protest/

It is shameful and heartbreaking that the entire world ignores the plight of the Yazidis

[Anthea]

Former ISIS sex slave vows to achieve dream and become lawyer after surviving regular rape and abuse

A Yazidi woman who was kidnapped by ISIS and raped and abused by nine militants has vowed to achieve her dream of becoming a lawyer after surviving the group's horrific abuse.

Dalal was just 17 when jihadis overran her village in the Iraqi region of Sinjar on 4 August 2014 in a bloody campaign that triggered international intervention in the conflict.

It was the opening days of ISIS’ genocide against the Yazidi people of Iraq, seeing thousands of men massacred while their wives and daughters were forced to become sex slaves.

Dalal was living with her father, an electrician, and four siblings as she studied towards her aim of becoming a women’s rights lawyer.

“At this time I was satisfied with my life situation because we had no serious problems and we were allowed to live in peace,” she said.

“Before ISIS arrived in Hardan, we were told by a Sunni neighbour that they would soon arrive but we should not be afraid for our lives, because they would not do us any harm.

“We should raise white flags, show no weapon and no uniform.

“The leaders of the ISIS troops would only meet the local mayor in the local café, and we would continue to lead our lives peacefully.”

But rumours soon spread of ISIS’ true intentions and Dalal’s family prepared their escape.

They did not get out in time and were rounded up by jihadis, who regard Yazidis as heretics and have attempted to justify their massacres and enslavement in propaganda.

Male members of the families, including Dalal’s 16-year-old brother Fauaz, were separated from the women and children and taken away.

No trace has ever been found but evidence of mass graves found in the area suggests they were systematically massacred by militants.

Her nine-year-old brother was among younger boys forced to become child soldiers, ordered to memorise the Quran and brainwashed in ISIS ideology, while being trained as suicide bombers and fighters.

Meanwhile Dalal, her mother and two sisters were forced to hand over their money, jewellery, mobile phones and belongings before older women were forced into household labour and the younger ones distributed to the ISIS strongholds of Raqqa, Mosul and Tal Afar.

Dalal was handed to an ISIS commander she knew as “Nasr” and held in his home for five months.

“Every morning I was forced to pray from three o'clock, five times over the day,” she recalled.

“I was responsible for the housework, the breakfast, the dinner, had to clean the apartment and always had to learn a verse from the Quran by heart. For that I had only little time.

“If I could not recite the verse when he asked, I was beaten and humiliated as a punishment.”

Nasr’s wife was jealous and beat the teenager, who her husband regularly raped and abused.

When he was killed in battle, the abuse continued with another ISIS fighter, and then another, and another.

One of the rapists, known as Abu-Mustafa, got her pregnant but another militant who had also “bought” Dalal made her force an abort the baby by taking pills and carrying out heavy labour.

She was left weakened and in pain by the ordeal, which continued for nine months under nine separate captors.

The last ISIS fighter helped Dalal return to her family – “just for the reason to make good of his previous deeds" – by driving her to southern Iraq and handing her over to Shia soldiers.

She was transported to Dohuk, where she found her father alive with remaining family members, and started volunteering for the German International Society for Human Rights as they distributed aid to refugees.

Aid workers volunteered her name for a quota of Yazidi women resettled to Germany by the local government in Baden-Württemberg, which took her in alongside more than 1,000 survivors.

“We have been treated medically, and special therapies have been used, which are still being carried out on me to this day,” Dalal said.

“Soon I would like to finish my school education and realise my dream and work as a lawyer.”

The UN found ISIS has sought to “erase” the Yazidis through a campaign of genocide including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Observers have documented the use of killing, sexual slavery, enslavement and torture including the rape of girls as young as nine.

Dalal recounted her experience at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, where she called for continued international efforts to help the thousands of Yazidi women and children who remain under Isis control.

While living in Germany, she has told her story under the name “Shirin” in a book entitled I Remain a Daughter of the Light, and is campaigning for ISIS leaders to be tried by the International Criminal Court, as well as for Yazidis and other minorities to be given greater protections in Syria and Iraq, and aid as refugees.

More than 500 former inhabitants of her hometown have already been found in mass graves. Dalal’s mother was taken to Syria by ISIS, at least one brother is dead and her younger sister remains missing.

They are among 3,500 Yazidi captives still held by the terrorist group, mainly women and children, as its territories come under attack by advancing Iraqi forces and international air strikes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 06396.html

[Anthea]

Yazidi villagers flee fighting between rival Kurdish factions

Hundreds of Syrian Kurdish Peshmerga fighters attacked the Yazidi town, Khanasor, on Friday in an attempt to overpower the regional influence of the PKK.

Peshmerga Rojava forces loyal to the Kurdish government in Erbil attacked Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) at around 6:30am Iraqi time [0330 GMT] in the region north of Sinjar, Iraq.

In response to the attack, Iraqi majority-Shia militia forces (PMU), aligned with Baghdad, announced they would deploy to protect the local Yazidi population.

"Iraqi PMU will now consider new operations to remove all illegal KDP and ISIS sieges on the Yazidi people in Sinjar," the PMU announced on Twitter.

In scenes resembling the 2014 invasion of Yazidi areas by Islamic State, which proceeded to carry out a genocide on Yazidis, hundreds of families reportedly fled the fighting.

The fighting erupted after the Peshmerga Rojava forces moved into areas controlled by the YBS, a militia which receives support, training and backing from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The YBS were formed after the PKK removed Islamic State from the Sinjar region and established a defensive force with the local Yazidi population.

The PKK has been locked in a decades-long conflict with the Turkish state, which also indirectly supports the Peshmerga Rojava through the regional Kurdish government in Erbil.

Erbil is looking to increase its influence over the Sinjar region and repel the local PKK presence, said Matthew Barber, an American expert on the local Yazidi population.

The individual militias

KDP = Kurdistan Democratic Party. Founded in 1946, it is the dominant party in the Kurdish Regional Government and is headed by KRG President Masoud Barzani. Ideologically conservative, it has its own armed Peshmerga forces usually called the 80 Unit.

YBS = Sinjar Resistance Units. A Yazidi armed force trained by the YPG and the PKK following IS' August 2014 attack on Sinjar and Sinjar mountain, the historic heartland of the Yazidi population.

PKK = Kurdistan Workers' Party. Armed group founded in 1978 in Turkey; one of its founders and current leader Abdullah Ocalan has been in jail in Turkey since 1999. Waging an armed campaign against the Turkish state since 1984, and outlawed in Turkey as a terrorist group, the PKK has its base in the Qandil Mountains, located in the northeast of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) territory.

PMU = People's Mobilisation Units, sometimes referred to as the Hash al-Shaabi. A state-sponsored umbrella organization of mainly Shia militias, with some Christian and Yazidi brigades.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/ ... h-factions

[Anthea]

Êzidîs in Rojava protest the KDP attack on Shengal

Êzidîs who took shelter in Rojava after fleeing the ISIS massacre of 2014 and who are staying at the Newroz Camp in Dêrik since have condemned today's attack by KDP forces.

A written statement made on behalf of the Êzidîs at Newroz Camp said the followings:

“We condemn the attack in order to make ourselves heard by the international human rights organisations and all relevant circles. The people of Shengal are facing multiple attacks by the Turkish state and KDP. Plans are being made to discourage the people. Êzîdî people have suffered 74 genocides at the hands of the Turkish state, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kurdistan collaborators.

Today's attack on Shengal was arranged following the Erdoğan-Barzani meeting. Who can claim this to be coincidental? The criminal record of KDP and Barzani seems to be worsening since August 2014. These latest attacks were doubtlessly developed in the scope of some deals and plans.

As Êzîdî people, we condemn the KDP's conspiracies against Shengal and Êzidîs, and we call on the Êzîdîs who support KDP to take off the dress of betrayal. Shengal shouldn't be the place and target of betrayal. We promise Leader Apo to fight to the end."

Demonstrators staged a march to the Rojava-Shengal border after the statement.