A Yazidi girl’s tale of horror at the hands of ISIS

Lamya Haji Bashar Taha saw her whole village Kocho destroyed in front of her eyes; she was raped multiple times and was sold many times over to the fighters of Islamic State.

Image used for representational purpose only (AP)

NEW DELHI: Her listless eyes belie the horrors she has experienced at the hands of the Islamic State fighters all at the age of 15 years. Lamya Haji Bashar Taha, a Yazidi girl, saw her whole village destroyed in front of her eyes. She was raped multiple times, was sold many times over to the fighters of Islamic State.

Lamya was here at 9^th Asia Security Conference organized by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses to narrate here experience. She was part of the panel talking about ‘The new Wave of Terror: Ideas, Resources and Trends’.

“They took me and my sister to Mosul. They sold us to someone from Raqqa. There were many Yazidi girls beside me in a big hall. A big man from Saudi bought me and my sister together. The Daesh (that is how the Islamic State is known in the Middle East) fighter raped me and my sister on the same day. Another Daesh fighter came and brought me and separated me from my sister. I tried to commit suicide by cutting my artery,” this was repeated over and over again with Lamya so many times that she lost count.

Her village Kocho was wiped out by the Islamic State in one of its worst massacres in the north-western Iraq in August 2014. They killed all the Yazidi men and captured the women and children, Lamya was among them. She was then pushed into sexual slavery.

The Islamic State in 2014 had undertaken systematic killing of Yazidis, a community of about 50,000 members and whom the terrorist group refers to as “devil worshippers”. One can only be born a Yazidi and believe in sun worshipping. The United Nations has termed it as an attempted genocide. There are about 2,000 Yazidi women in the captivity of the Islamic State and the fleeing population is forced to live in camps in the Kurdistan region.

She managed to flee her perpetrators but she paid for her freedom with her eye that she lost in a mind blast. “Daesh is not only dangerous for us. But if the international community does not respond, Daesh ideology will be dangerous to you to each one of you,” Lamya said in her voice devoid of any expressions.