HORROR OF THE HUMAN SHIELDS
Tell our liberators to save us, not shoot us: that’s the terrified plea to the MoS by innocents of Mosul forced into frontline by IS as troops close in
HIDING in a barn in a war-torn city, a petrified young man living under the horrific rule of Islamic State whispers his desperate cry of help into his mobile phone: ‘We are all close to death. Save us.’
He is one of the many thousands of ‘human shields’ in Mosul, where a coalition of Iraqi and Western forces are battling to take back the city from an army of jihadi terrorists making their last stand.
His is an extraordinary and terrifying despatch – as for the first time, one of the hostages being held by IS in the Iraqi city speaks to the outside world. ‘Abdul’ – whose real name The Mail on Sunday has chosen not to disclose – spoke to our reporter in a snatched phone call, for which he could have paid with his life if he had been discovered.
Speaking from the smallholding where he and his family are trapped, Abdul said: ‘We are all close to death, all of us – my mother and father, my brother and his wife, and my own wife and children. God help us here, we feel it could not be worse, but I know there are even more terrible days to come.’
His home is in an area that has come under sustained aerial bombardment from coalition forces battling IS over the past few days and he added: ‘The bombs and rockets and the sound of gunfire goes on all day and night now.
‘We have no television or radio, and no internet, but I know from the noise and the feeling of terror around us that something big is about to happen. It could be the end of us.
‘Please, please do something to help us. Save our children and the helpless women here. Surely the world can spare them, surely someone cares about us?’
But as a human hostage he fears the awful possibility of falling victim to friendly fire, because of the way in which IS has forced Abdul and others to blend in with their captors.
He said: ‘We have been forced to grow our beards so that we look like them. We are terrified of being shot on sight when the troops come in. It will be difficult for them to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
‘That is why I want the troops to know where we are and who we are, so they know that in this family we are innocent victims of the persecution that has continued for two years.’ During those two years Abdul has witnessed the full horror of the rule of jihadi ‘law’.
Just days ago, he was one of a number of men forced at gunpoint to witness three of their neighbours having their hands cut off. The men, trying to feed their starving families, had stolen rice and flour from the market.
‘It was terrible and brutal,’ he said. ‘They forced a local doctor to inject morphine into the men’s arms, then made one clean sweep with a meat cleaver, and afterwards got the doctor to bandage the wounds.
‘They say they do it for our religion, to punish thieves. My friends tried to be brave but there was so much blood, and I will never forget them crying with pain while we could do nothing, just stand and watch.’
He was calling to find out how long it was going to take for the Iraqi army, along with the US and Britain, to eliminate the terrorists and bring back some sort of peace to Mosul.
‘You must know how long,’ he said. ‘Will it be days or weeks? We cannot bear this waiting, this dread. My whole family is petrified, we are moving from place to place to try to find somewhere safe. We don’t want to abandon our farm and sheep. We need the animals to barter for rice and vegetables and bottled water. The only water we can get from the taps is briny and bad for us.
‘I’m trying to comfort the children but I’m afraid they will soon get sick. They have seen houses bombed and crushed and some of our neighbours killed. Now they won’t sleep indoors. They spend each night in the farm vehicles and ask me all the time when we can get out of Mosul, get somewhere safe.’
Abdul wanted to pass a message to the troops now massing around Mosul ready for the big push against IS in the coming days. ‘Tell the whereabouts of my family to any army officers you know, so they will know we are good people and not IS fighters or collaborators,’ he pleaded.
He has packed all his family’s belongings so they can leave at a moment’s notice if rescue comes. ‘We have so little anyway,’ he said. ‘They ransacked our house and broke our furniture and took anything of value when they first came to Mosul two years ago.’
The IS fighters have told Abdul and his neighbours that their best chance of safety is to take up arms with them. ‘They say our women and children will be taken away by the Iraq army and that we can only be saved by fighting with them or letting their snipers come into our homes,’ he said. ‘But they are mostly foreigners, Tunisians and Chechens and others.
‘I want to see my own countrymen, or the American and British. I want to welcome them into Mosul and slay my sheep for them to feast on.
‘I will do anything to get us out of here alive.’
‘We cannot bear this waiting, this dread’