The short story that I’m about to tell is real,brutal,horrifying, terrible and you name it. World has already been put under notice by ISIS with some of their horrendous acts and here’s one such act which is gut-wrenching. I’ve read a few articles about this story from morning and thought to share some of its excerpts in my blog today.
A 17 year old, Mayat, (not her real name) was kidnapped by members of ISIS on 3rd August during an offensive against Sinjar. She remains with her captors. These men allowed Mayat, who speaks some English as she wanted to study in Europe, to talk because, “to hurt us even more, they told us to describe in detail to our parents what they are doing.” Now that is an outrageous abuse of their cowardly capture. They think that they are telling a story about their heroics but a man/woman with a proper conscience would know that the act is spineless,spiritless and basically sick.
Her parents, refugees in Kurdistan, gave their daughter’s number to a journalist from Italian paper La Repubblica. The teenage girl begs her interviewer not to name her because: “I am ashamed of what they have done to me. Part of me would like to die immediately, to sink beneath the ground and stay there. But another part that still hopes to be saved, and to be able to hug my parents once more.” One can totally understand her mental situation and pray that she’ll be safe soon. It’s just not her who is going through that hell, Mayat also reveals that 40 other women are there along with her. Torture is the other name of ISIS.
“What are they doing to me?” She says, “I am too ashamed to say, and I don’t even know how to describe my torture.” There are, she says, three “rooms of horror” where the women are raped, often by different men and throughout the day. “They treat us like slaves. We are always ‘given’ to different men. Some arrive straight from Syria,” she says.
ISIS has made huge territorial gains across northern Iraq and parts of Syria, capturing thousands of women and children according to an Amnesty International report last month. “They threaten us and beat us if we try to resist. Often I wish they would beat me so hard I will die. But they are cowards even in this. None of them have the courage to end our suffering. ” Mayat says some of the youngest girls have stopped talking because of the abuse and were taken away by their captors. Many of the women have attempted to end their lives. “Sometimes I feel as though it will never end. And if it did, my life would remain forever scarred by the torture I have suffered the past few weeks,” Mayat says. “Even if I survive, I don’t think I’ll be able to remove this horror from my mind.”
Unfortunate that one can only sympathize with her and can’t do anything about that at present. I only hope that solutions will be found soon and make a statement to organizations like ISIS that they won’t last long no matter how cruel they can get. The last line which you are about to read will move you.
Mayat finished by saying: “They have already killed my body. They are now killing my soul.”
– Nithin Lokesh
summeri9e 