The face of raw courage
Kidnapped by jihadis. Sold into sexual slavery. Horribly abused. Then, in a daring dash for freedom, Lamiya suffered a cruel last blow. Truly, this is...
HERE WE REVEAL ISLAMIC STATE’S SEXUAL HOLY WAR AGAINST YAZIDI WOMEN
SHE stood defiant in the dock. Blood poured from her mouth and nose, while her body was covered with bruises – the result of another beating by her Islamic State captors. Once again Lamiya Haji Bashar had tried to escape her tormentors. And once again, the Yazidi teenager had been caught.
A judge in Mosul’s sharia court stared at her. After being told Lamiya kept trying to escape he made his ruling. ‘He said they must kill me or cut off my foot to stop me escaping,’ Lamiya said. ‘I told him that if you cut off one foot then I will escape with the other.’
She showed immense bravery, yet it was typical of this remarkable teenager. Eventually her life – and her feet – were saved by a senior IS official, who argued that she should be sold to a new ‘owner’.
Lamiya was one of the several thousand Yazidi women and girls – who belong to an ethnically Kurdish religious community – condemned to sex slavery. Another year of fear, agony and assaults lay ahead of her, held captive by a cruel surgeon, who traded kidnapped women and children.
But now Lamiya is free, though even her escape was etched in pain and tragedy. She was injured in an explosion that left extensive physical scars on her face to go with the deep psychological scars on her mind.
I met Lamiya in a hotel in Germany, where she told me her story – a tale of savagery beyond anyone’s worst nightmare.
She heard her father and brothers being shot, was enslaved by their cruel killers, and then beaten and raped for almost two years by a succession of older men.
During her time trapped in Syria and northern Iraq, Lamiya saw children sold to old men as sex slaves, and she was forced to help make suicide bombs. At one point she was gang-raped by 40 fanatics. Yet she never buckled. ‘These men were more than monsters,’ she says. ‘That’s why I stayed strong, because I wanted to challenge the life they gave me.’
Now, she has taken the unusual step for her gender, her religion and her region, in speaking openly about the horrors. It is hard to believe that she is still only 18.
Lamiya’s stance was recently recognised with the EU’s top human rights award – the Sakharov Prize. Nadia Murad, another Yazidi sex slave survivor, was also honoured.
The 400,000-strong Yazidi community is persecuted by extreme Muslims for devil-worship since their religion reveres an angel that takes the form of a blue peacock.
Lamiya comes from the Yazidi village of Kocho in northern Iraq, where the 1,800 residents were told by IS to convert to Islam or die. Until then she had enjoyed a happy childhood, growing up on a farm owned by a wealthy family. She went to school, worked hard and hoped to become a teacher.
‘When I first heard of Daesh [another term for IS] on television I thought it was some kind of new animal,’ she says, underlining her youth. ‘I didn’t know that they were a terror gang.’
Two cars filled with IS fighters arrrived in Kocho in early August 2014. ‘They asked us to convert and said they would do no harm,’ Lamiya says. Then, on August 15, a large force of black-clad men stormed the village – locals recognised some from nearby towns. Everyone was ordered into the school, stripped of all their possessions, and females were taken to the first floor.
‘I was so scared. Then they took all our men – fathers, sons, brothers.’
It was the last time she saw her father and two brothers. ‘Then 10 minutes later we heard the shooting,’ says Lamiya. The men were slaughtered in their own streets. Then the women were split up: married women and younger children were taken to nearby Tal Afar, while unmarried women and teenagers were sent to Mosul. Older women were shot the next day. Lamiya and three of her sisters soon got a taste of the fate that lay ahead. ‘The men began attacking us, touching us and kissing us.’ In Mosul, the captives were taken to a market where militants could buy sex slaves. ‘If someone refused to go, they were beaten with cables,’ says Lamiya. ‘It was so painful to see these old men, these monsters, attack the girls. Even girls of nine and 10 were crying and begging not to be attacked.’ A Saudi man bought Lamiya and one of her sisters, taking them to the IS stronghold of Raqqa. ‘He beat us for the three days we were with him. Once he tried to kill me with his hands around my neck because I rejected his advances.’ The man took the pair to an IS base and threw them into a room. ‘There were about 40 fighters who abused us. Two small girls at the hands of so many monsters. Terrible things happened to us.’
Afterwards the girls were sold to different fighters, fetching about £100 each. Lamiya ended up with an even more brutal man from Mosul. Although kept in a locked room, she made the first of five escape attempts by jumping from an apartment window.
A local man hid Lamiya and tried unsuccessfully to contact her relatives. However, fearing the wrath of IS he decided to hand her back to the group after three days.
Before being returned to her furious master – who beat her viciously – Lamiya was tortured by six men.
After her second escape attempt, the man sold her. She was taken by a white-haired man from Mosul, who lived with his wife and son. ‘I once asked his wife and mother to help protect me from the sexual abuse but they said that was his right since I was an infidel.’
This man held her for two months. Later Lamiya discovered he had another wife: a blonde, blue-eyed younger woman who spoke German. ‘She was very nice but I could not believe she accepted this man.’
After another escape attempt, Lamiya was passed on to an IS emir. ‘The IS leader was an expert bombmaker, with a basement in Mosul.