Baghdadi’s death doesn’t feel like justice yet for Yazidis
SHARYA CAMP: Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s death will mean nothing to 19-year-old rape victim Jamila unless the Daesh militants who enslaved her are brought to justice.
Jamila, who asked not to be identified by her last name, is one of thousands of women from the Yazidi minority religion who were kidnapped and raped by Daesh ater it mounted an assault on the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq in August 2014.
“Even if Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi is dead, it doesn’t mean Daesh is dead,” Jamila told Reuters outside the tent that is now her temporary home in the Sharya camp for displaced Yazidis in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
“This doesn’t feel like justice yet,” she said. “I want the men who took me, who raped me, to stand trial. And I want to have my voice heard in court. I want to face them in court... Without proper trials, his death has no meaning.” Baghdadi, who had led Daesh since 2010, detonated a suicide vest ater being cornered in a raid by US special forces in northwest Syria, US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday.
Inspired by his edicts to enslave and slaughter Yazidis, his followers shot, beheaded and kidnapped thousands in a rampage which the United Nations called a genocidal campaign against them.
Along with thousands of other women and children, Jamila said she was enslaved by the militants and kept in captivity for five months in the city of Mosul along with her sister.
She was just 14 when she was seized. But her problems did not end ater she and her sister managed to escape when, she said, their guards were high on drugs.
“When I first came back, I had a nervous breakdown and psychological problems for two years, so I couldn’t go to school,” she said.
Now instead of working or catching up on her years of lost schooling, she looks ater her mother, with whom she shares her cramped tent at the camp.
“My mother can’t walk and has health problems so I have to stay and take care of her because my older siblings are in Germany,” she said.