Girls held by ISIL just want to resume lives

Iraqi sisters Afrah and Asil escaped extremists who took them and 14 other family members as shields. Now they dream of returning to school and work

NEAR BASHIQA, IRAQ // The first thing Iraqi teenager Afrah did when she escaped ISIL captivity near Mosul was to remove her face veil and throw it defiantly to the ground.

The extremists kidnapped and used Afrah, 16, her older sister Asil and 14 other family members as human shields when they withdrew from the Iraqi city of Tikrit, her hometown about 200 kilometres to the south, early last year.

For a year and a half the fami- ly was trapped in the village of Bawiza, just north of ISIL’s Iraqi stronghold. The girls tried to keep a low profile and barely ventured outdoors.

When Iraqi forces pushed into the village a few days ago, part of the campaign to oust ISIL from Mosul, they were determined not to be taken hostage again and rushed towards the military’s armoured vehicles.

Having survived the militants’ oppressive rule, Afrah and Asil, 19, want to put the harrowing experience behind them, return to Tikrit, resume studies, work and get their lives back.

“I’ve lost two years of my education. I want to get back to school, complete my studies and then qualify to become a dentist,” Afrah says.

Asil wants to go back to her job issuing food hygiene certificates to restaurants and cafes.

“I loved that job, I can’t wait to start again,” she says.

The sisters are waiting in the desert with hundreds of other Iraqis trying to cross into Kurdish-controlled areas a few kilometres north-east of Mosul.

The sound of explosions come from the city as the campaign to drive ISIL out continues, with fierce street battles between the militants and Iraqi forces.

ISIL took civilians hostage in an attempt to deter air raids, executed people in Mosul, used women from religious minorities as sex slaves and enforced its conservative rules on others using female religious police.

“If you dared to not wear a niqab you’d get a fine on the first occasion, about 50,000 dinars (Dh147), but after that, they’d beat you,” Afrah says.

“I hardly went out. I slept, ate, that was it. A few months ago they cut off the internet, too. It was boring. I didn’t want to go to one of their schools where they taught you only about weapons and religion.”

Afrah wears a long brown coat and bright woolly hat. She says she will continue to wear the Muslim headscarf but is relieved to show her face again. Asil has also shed her niqab.

The elder sister narrowly avoided being married off to an ISIL fighter while they lived in Bawiza, she says.

“Dad refused to give the guy my hand in marriage,” she says – a dangerous act of defiance that nearly got her father Saeed killed.

“The fighter who wanted to marry Asil accused dad of being a spy and they took him for trial,” Afrah says. “The fighter was gross, old with a big beard.”

Afrah, who speaks some English and who the family say is their technical whizz, had the presence of mind to delete all of Saeed’s contacts from his phone, starting with relatives or friends who had served in Iraq’s security forces.

Without enough evidence and because the ISIL fighter was not high-ranking, Saeed was let go.

“They’d have cut my head off,” he says.

A few months later the family learnt the fighter had been killed in battle.

“That dog is dead,” Saeed says, standing next to Asil.

A relative was not so lucky, they say, pointing to a woman sitting nearby on a tarpaulin sheet with the rest of the family. ISIL executed her husband because he used to be a policeman. The family stocked up on blankets and warm clothes for winter, anticipating having to spend time in a refugee camp somewhere. They do not know when they will be allowed into Kurdish-held territory or how long it will take after that to get home. “Hopefully we can return soon,” Asil says. “Girls who lived under ISIL just want to resume their lives.”