The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Iraqi boys recount horrors of Islamic State captivity, training
Yazidi youths now struggling to regain some normalcy.
KABARTO CAMP, IRAQ — They made the captive children, malnourished and weak from hunger, fight over a single tomato. Then the Islamic State militants told them, “In paradise, you’ll be able to eat whatever you want. But first you have to get to paradise, and you do that by blowing yourself up.”
The lesson was part of the indoctrination inflicted by the militants on boys from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority after the extremist group overran the community’s towns and villages in northern Iraq. The group forced hundreds of boys, some as young as 7 or 8, into training to become fighters and suicide bombers, infusing them with its murderous ideology.
Now boys who escaped captivity are struggling to regain some normalcy, living in camps for the displaced along with what is left of their families. After surviving beatings, watching horrific atrocities, being held for months or years apart from their parents, losing loved ones and narrowly escaping death themselves, they are plagued by nightmares, anxiety and outbursts of violence.
“Even here I’m still very afraid,” said 17-yearold Ahmed Ameen Koro, who spoke in the sprawling Esyan Camp in northern Iraq, where he now lives with his mother, sister and a brother, the only surviving members of his family. “I can’t sleep properly because I see them in my dreams.”
Ahmed was 14 when the militants stormed into the Yazidi heartland around the northern town of Sinjar in the summer of 2014.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis were killed in the assault on Sinjar and neighboring towns and the militants kidnapped thousands of women and girls as sex slaves. The Yazidi minority, whose ancient faith combines aspects of Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, is considered heretical by the Islamic extremists. U.S.-backed Kurdish forces drove the Islamic State out of Sinjar in November 2015, but few Yazidis have returned, and an estimated 3,500 remain in captivity, scattered around its territory in Iraq and Syria, according to Human Rights Watch.
‘Looked like monsters’
Ahmed’s family tried to flee when the militants descended on their village, but Islamic State fighters captured him, his 13-yearold brother Amin and four cousins.
The boys were taken to the Islamic State-held town of Tal Afar, some 30 miles away, where they were kept in a boys’ school along with dozens of other boys and teens. The adult men were taken away, leaving the women and girls.
“They chose and took the girls they liked,” Ahmed recalled. “I remember the girls were crying, as well as the mothers. They were dragging these girls from the arms of their mothers.”
“They were all very big bearded men. They looked like monsters,” he said.
Ahmed was among some 200 Yazidi boys sent to a twomonth training camp in Tal Afar. They studied the Quran and the militants’ hard-line interpretation of Islam, and were forced to say they had become Muslims.
“We were scared of saying that we were not Muslims because they would kill us,” he said.
They also learned to fire assault rifles and pistols. They watched videos on how to use a suicide belt, throw a grenade and behead a person.
There was talk of sending the boys, who spoke a northern Kurdish dialect and knew little Arabic, to other Arabic-speaking countries to learn Arabic, study Islam and forget about their Yazidi parents.
“They were telling us, ‘You are not Yazidis anymore. You are one of us,’” Ahmed said.
‘You will blow yourself up’
Akram Rasho Khalaf was only 7 when his town was overrun by the militants. His family tried to flee, but the militants opened fire and Akram suffered shrapnel and bullet wounds to his abdomen and hand. He was taken by ambulance to Mosul, seized earlier that summer by the Islamic State, where he underwent surgery. He never heard from his parents again.
Akram fidgeted as he talked about his captivity, saying he remembered being too hungry to be afraid.
Eventually, he was brought to Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State’s self-declared capital. There the militants would throw balls at the children’s heads. If any cried, they were beaten. Those who didn’t cry were praised, and told they would one day be suicide bombers.
“They were saying they are our friends, but the kids were scared to death,” Akram said in Kabarto Camp, where he now lives with his uncle, two siblings and other relatives.
“They were telling us, ‘When you grow up, you will blow yourself up, God willing,’” he said.
Training included sliding on their bellies through barricades of burning tires, jumping over obstacles and off roofs. Akram wasn’t strong enough to handle a gun, so he was forced to be a servant.
‘We were almost dying’
Two years after Akram was taken captive, his uncle received a photo of him dressed in black Islamic garb and an offer to smuggle him out of Raqqa for $10,500 — an increasingly common practice.
The family borrowed the money from a relative in Germany, and he was reunited with what remains of his family on Nov. 29 — two years and three months after he was seized.
Ahmed escaped sooner. On May 4, 2015, nine months after their capture, Ahmed and his brother Amin sneaked away from the training camp in Tal Afar, hid in a mosque until nightfall, then fled with a small group of others on foot.
“We were following the movement of the sun and continued walking at night,” he said. “We were very thirsty because we ran out of water and we could not find the safe road. We ran out of everything. We were almost dying.”
But fear kept them going, and after a nine-day, 55-mile trek they reached the Sinjar mountains, where Kurdish peshmerga forces rescued them.
‘Hide the knives’
Akram’s uncle says his nephew suffers nightmares, anxiety, sleeplessness and bedwetting. The boy’s 8-yearold brother and 5-year-old sister, rescued separately after ransom was paid, have similar problems.
“Sometimes they become very aggressive and they beat up other children or our children,” he said.
Carl Gaede, an American clinical social worker and executive director of Tutapona, a U.S.-based nonprofit specializing in war trauma, says these reactions are common among survivors.
“We’ve seen a number of the children acting out in violent ways and family members needing to hide the knives, hide dangerous items out of fear of how the children might use them,” said Gaede, who works with survivors of Islamic State brutality.
Ahmed sees a counselor, like many living in the camp, and fills his days now with school and running a small shop. Asked about his dreams for the future, Ahmed answers immediately. “When I grow up I will take my revenge against Daesh, against those infidels.”
Akram, now a ball of energy on a tiny frame with an easy smile and a killer dimple, also has a ready response. Asked what he wants to do when he grows up, he declared: “Fight Daesh.”