Shipping hope from Oban to Iraq
Nurse on a mission after seeing how lives were ruined by IS
In her peaceful home in Oban, the chaos of war in the Iraqi city of Sinjar could hardly feel further away.
But Fiona Bennett has never forgotten the way she felt when she first saw reports of the massacre of innocent Yazidis by Islamic State militants in 2014.
Nurse Fiona, 41, is still moved to tears as she speaks about a baby girl who died because she was too weak to eat or drink.
The 11- month- old had been rushed to hospital in the warravaged country suffering from dehydration and malnutrition but, because medics didn’t have even a simple nasal- gastric feeding tube, the infant couldn’t be saved.
Now, from her home 3500 miles away, mum- of- two Fiona has sourced not only feeding tubes but syringes, needles, medical gloves, disinfectant wipes and a whole host of other everyday medical supplies.
She has collected more than £300,000 worth of the life-saving medical essentials – enough to fill eight shipping containers – which are on their way to the hospital in the northern Iraqi city.
And as those living in the area try to rebuild their shattered lives in the wake of IS being defeated in the country, Fiona said she will continue to do all she can to help.
She said: “When I first heard about the people of Sinjar, the invasion of the area by IS, the genocide they carried out and the way the women and even very young girls were rounded up and raped, I knew I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
“I got so upset and people would say to me, ‘ You have to stop talking about this. There is nothing you can do.’
“Some people even told me this was what IS wanted – people like me feeling outraged and even afraid.
“But I thought the people these horrif ic crimes were happening to deserved better than that. “The west coast of Scotland might be far away from Sinjar but I had to help.”
Fiona learned about the invasion of Sinjar in August 2014 after scrolling through news websites while awake in the middle of the night feeding her youngest daughter.
IS fighters killed more than 5000 men within hours of their attack. In the days that followed, more than 12,000 people are believed to have been murdered or abducted.
Fiona, who is mum to Jenny, six, and Alice, four, said: “There was coverage on the thousands of people who were trapped on
Mount Sinjar after IS had moved into the towns nearby. Barack Obama had arranged for food parcels to be dropped on to the mountain to help feed people.
“One article had a headline about a nine-year-old girl being gang-raped by IS fighters.
“She had been dragged out to a village square and raped in front of a crowd of men.
“I remember my heart started racing – I thought I was having a heart attack – and I didn’t sleep thinking of the unimaginable things happening out there.
“As a mum of two young daughters, it really affected me.”
Fiona contacted Yazda, a charity that had been set up to help the largely Yazidi community in the area who had been persecuted by IS.
Af ter f inding out more, including how the women and girls were being abused and sold as sex slaves, she took on the voluntary role as UK secretary for the charity.
Yazda have been work ing a longside barrister Amal Clooney to successfully lobby the United Nations to ensure IS can be held accountable for international crimes carried out by their fighters, including genocide, sexual enslavement and trafficking.
As well as fundraising, Fiona arranged for Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman who had been held by IS militants, to tell her horrific story first-hand to politicians at Westminster and Holyrood. Nadia was one of more than 5000 Yazidi women taken captive by IS fighters. She remained their prisoner for three months before escaping.
She told how IS fighters would force her and the other girls to pray before raping them. Fiona said: “I took Nadia to meet pol iticians including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
“She spoke so powerful ly about what she went through and has now gone on to tell her story to leaders all over the world.”
While IS have now been defeated in Iraq, large numbers of women from Sinjar are still being held hostage by the jihadist group in neighbouring Syria.
Those who survived the invasion need help and support to rebuild their lives.
Fiona added: “Sinjar was once a big, busy city but now no one lives there. There are no houses for anyone to live in, they have all been destroyed, although the hospital is still there.
“People travel from all over to go to the hospital but, even when you get there, doctors and nurses have very little.”
Fiona was so moved by the stories of lives being lost due to the lack of the most basic medical supplies, she wrote to NHS Scotland asking for help.
The Government agency arranged a meeting for her with several of their suppliers, who have since donated bandages, dressings and other vital equipment. Last weekend, eight 40ft shipping containers filled with the supplies left the port at Felixstowe, Suffolk, to make the 30-day sea trip to Basra in Iraq.
From there, the supplies will be transported under armed guard on a 12-hour road trip to the hospital in Sinjar.
Fiona, who hopes to travel to Sinjar later this year, raised the £14,000 cost of paying to get the supplies to Iraq through an appeal on social media.
She said: “There is a lot of red tape surrounding the sending of medicines to places like Sinjar but I’m hopeful we’ll be able to send more supplies soon.
“The people in Sinjar may no longer be facing a direct threat from IS but they are still in grave danger. So much help is needed.”
I got so upset when I heard about girls being raped by IS fighters