The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

by Farida Khalaf

  “Each one more beautiful than the next,” he said to the Iraqi. “How can one possibly decide, Eleas?”

  “Why not take a few of them if the choice is so hard?” our captors assured them.

  I looked at the greed on the men’s faces; they seemed to like the suggestion. “Not a bad idea. Several girls would certainly mean more fun.”

  The Iraqi nodded in agreement. “But we ought to talk about the price again.”

  “Of course we’d give you a discount in that case,” our captors assured them.

  They withdrew to the sitting room to discuss the matter out of earshot. I exchanged anxious glances with Evin. If they weren’t completely blind they’d notice now that we’d warped the bars. My heart began racing. Was there any possible way we could prevent this? No, there wasn’t.

  We didn’t have to wait long before the chief of our guards, the Palestinian, came striding back into the hall. “Who did it?” he asked us in a fury. We looked at him simplemindedly, acting as if we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Which of you tried to break the bars in there?”

  No one said a word.

  “If that girl doesn’t own up I’m going to punish you all,” said the Palestinian. “Come on!”

  We stood there with ashen faces, but remained silent. He fixed his stare on us. “I will find out who did this,” he said menacingly. “And when I do, woe betide . . .”

  His gaze slid across our faces. I was terrified I might give myself away somehow. So I looked at the floor. But that was exactly the wrong reaction. Seeing as I always made such a scene when anyone came too close to me, he found this strange. He examined me more closely and discovered the bump beneath my skirt. Shamelessly he felt my hips and then proudly pulled the pliers from the waistband.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t our crazy little girl,” he said. “Up to your stupid tricks again. As if we didn’t have enough trouble with you already.” He gave me a resounding slap. My head pounded and I had difficulty staying on my feet.

  Then I saw the Libyan approach me. “So she tried to escape, did she? How sweet!” he said. “She seems to be full of beans, this one.”

  “She’s the bride of the devil,” the Palestinian said in irritation.

  The Libyan looked at me with growing interest. “How much do you want for her?” he asked the Palestinian.

  “I’ll make you a special price if you get her out of my sight.”

  “Hey, little one,” he said, turning to me. “Do you speak Arabic?”

  “No, she doesn’t understand a word,” Evin answered for me. “She’s my sister and she’s ill.”

  He was undeterred.

  “We can only go together, because I have to look after her,” I heard my friend say. I was totally overwhelmed by her self-sacrifice. My friend was really willing to give herself up to this barbarian to protect me! At the same time I was engulfed by a profound sadness. If only the men had turned up to our prison a few hours later, the other girls and I would have been long gone.

  “All right, then, you can come too!” Abu Haitham laughed. He was delighted at the prospect of even more slaves for even less money. He seemed entranced by the idea of taking a whole sackful of girls home.

  Our captors just wanted to be rid of us. They’d had enough of Evin, and especially of me, the persistent troublemaker who scared away customers with her attacks. So they were very keen to make a deal. Abu Haitham took Evin and me; his Iraqi colleague, Eleas, took Lena and Amna. He was going to have them picked up later.

  I’d have liked to know how much we cost. But I never found out.

  { Five }

  In the Dark Room

  Sold. It took me a while to realize what had just happened: I’d been traded like an animal at the livestock market. The men who’d kidnapped and kept me captive had peddled me. They’d earned money by relinquishing me to other men who could now do with me as they pleased. Who regarded me as their “property,” as their “slave.” And all those involved behaved as if their dealings were perfectly legitimate and normal. How could these people justify their deeds before their God? Did they seriously believe, as they kept insisting, that He gave them the right to do this? Would He forgive them? I knew I would never be willing to do so.

  I screamed and kicked when they tied my hands and put me in a black full-length cloak, which now was obligatory for women in the ISIS realm. As much as I’d wished to leave the hall over the past few days, at that moment I was terrified of doing so, terrified of what would happen now.

  I glanced at Evin. Her face was pale too, but she looked as composed as ever. Blinded by the dazzling sunlight of that August afternoon, we screwed up our eyes as they shoved us out the door. After spending almost ten days in the prison, we were no longer used to the rays of our beloved and venerated sun. We almost felt as if it had deserted us. But there it was. I bent forward imperceptibly and offered a hurried prayer to the heavens. “Lord, please let everything turn out all right. Let us find a way to escape them,” I whispered silently.

  We walked past the guards with their American M16 machine guns and Russian Kalashnikovs. The same men who’d brought us our cheese sandwiches in the mornings. And sometimes a plate of rice too. They’d threatened to shoot us if we tried to escape. And we’d believed them. But now it struck me that all their threats had been hollow. They’d never have shot us. We were far too precious goods for that. But fear had prevented us from realizing this.

  They grinned as we passed them on our way to the earthwork, a makeshift fence made of bags filled with sand. I really wanted to punch them in the face. Why had I let them intimidate me? I’d rather have risked being shot. Then at least I’d now be free—or dead. And that would definitely be preferable to being carted off by these vile criminals. With Abu Haitham and Eleas at either side of us, we squeezed our way through a gap in the barbed wire that was coiled on top of the earthwork, and went down to the cars. Among the military vehicles there was a smaller four-by-four. The men ordered us to get in the back. Reluctantly, we obeyed. At once I started to scan the vehicle for potential ways to escape. Was there a child lock on the doors?

  “Do you think we might be able to jump out while the car’s moving?” I whispered to Evin in Kurdish. At that moment I heard the “click” of the central locking. With that my plan was ruled out; we were trapped in the car.

  “Hey, we only speak Arabic here!” the men bellowed from the front.

  “My sister doesn’t understand Arabic,” Evin reminded them.

  “Then tell her to keep her trap shut!”

  We drove every which way through the city. I was surprised by just how much activity there was in the streets of Raqqa. I’d always imagined this capital of terror to be a bleak place, with only sinister figures about. Men like the ones who’d kidnapped and kept us captive. Men like the one who’d bought us and was driving this car. I’d heard of the executions carried out here in broad daylight, of the expulsions. But looking out of the window now, I could see or sense nothing of the horror that had taken place here.

  There were many small shops and kiosks still selling food, snacks, and other items: cosmetics, electrical goods, furniture, clothes. You could even buy soccer jerseys here, in spite of the ISIS occupation. It was only the plethora of black flags flying from the rooftops that made it clear who was in power here. All billboard advertisements had been pasted over with ISIS propaganda posters. Virtually every male inhabitant of the city now wore a beard, or at least stubble. And all you could see of the few women venturing out into the street was a mass of black material. They were completely covered, even their eyes.

  But otherwise everything looked quite normal. After murder, life goes on, I thought bitterly, and in my mind’s eye I saw my own village. Was Kocho now inhabited by Muslims? Were black flags flying on rooftops there too, and fully veiled women scurrying through the streets? Perhaps the women from the neighboring Muslim villages? I couldn’t really imagine it. But it wasn’t impossible. Certainly
the conquerors had helped themselves to our property.

  We stopped at one of the kiosks by the side of the road. The two men got out, locked the doors, and bought chips, chocolate bars, and bottles of water and orange juice. The vendor, a man in civilian clothing, peered nosily into our car as he attended to their wishes. I briefly considered screaming to alert him to our predicament. But the obsequiousness he displayed toward Abu Haitham stopped me. The Libyan who’d bought us was clearly an important ISIS figure. No civilian would dare risk a conflict with him just to help us out.

  So on we drove, out of the lively city center and into a district called Rabia, as I saw on a sign. The road leading there was unpaved and full of potholes. The district itself looked desolate too; ruins and rubble were all that remained of many houses. The Assad government must have attacked this part of the city from the air and most inhabitants had taken flight.

  We finally stopped outside a house with a number of apartments. Half of the building was missing; it must have been torn apart by a bomb. The remaining apartments on the other side were blackened with soot. Some windows were also missing. Evin and I looked at each other in apprehension. “Where are you taking us?” my friend asked the men.

  “We’re going to stay the night here,” they replied. They let us out and took us up to the third floor, where in fact there was a perfectly normal locked door.

  “Do you live here?” Evin asked.

  “Yes,” they said. The Iraqi unlocked the door and led us into an unbelievably filthy apartment on two floors. The entire floor and even the stairs were covered in a fine layer of soot. Otherwise it was practically empty: only a few chairs, what was left of a kitchen, and a heap of rubbish.

  “What is this?” Evin asked again. “What are we doing here?” We couldn’t imagine that this wrecked hovel was the men’s home. It must be an apartment occupied after the original owners had fled the fighting.

  “It’s just a stopover,” the men declared. “Tomorrow we’ll take you back to your families.”

  Evin and I looked at each other, knowing that they were lying. What did they really plan to do with us? Were they traffickers in women, who were going to sell us on? Or were they going to set up a harem here?

  They put us in one of the rooms. “Wait here, we’ll be right back,” they said, locking the door from the outside. We heard them go down the stairs and drive off in the car.

  “What is this all about?” I asked Evin.

  “I don’t know. But we can’t expect anything good to come of it, that’s for sure. Either they’ll sell us or they want us for themselves.” She looked at me sadly. I knew exactly what she was referring to but I couldn’t say it out loud: the men would rape us. Neither Evin nor I had a precise idea of what that actually meant. In our culture things like that aren’t discussed with unmarried women. All we knew is that we mustn’t in any circumstances allow them to touch our bodies. If we failed to prevent them from doing that our entire families would be dishonored.

  “We absolutely have to get out of here before they come back,” I said.

  “Sure, but how?” In panic, we looked around the room for a possible escape. There was a narrow window near the ceiling that wasn’t barred. But it was too high to reach without a stool or ladder. In one corner of the room was a whole pile of junk. Maybe there was something in it which could help us get up to the window or break the lock on the door. We had to search it. “Quick, help untie me!” I told Evin, holding out my arms.

  She yanked at the knots. But as her hands were tied too, it was extremely hard for her to do anything. Her tugging only chafed my wrists. “It’s not working,” she said. “They’ve tied the knots too tightly.”

  “But it is working!” I said, urging her to keep going.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “I can’t feel it at all.”

  Finally she managed to loosen the knots enough for me to move my hands at least partially. I rummaged through the pile, which was all stuff the last family had left behind: pots and pans, videocassettes, empty cardboard boxes, an iron, a toy train set. But then I happened upon something useful: an iron rod, about as long as a kebab skewer, but thicker and more solid. I suspected it had belonged to the stove. “Look!” I said to Evin.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea. But maybe we can use it to break open the door.”

  “How’s that going to work?”

  I tried to push the rod into the gap between the door and the hinge. But it was too fat. It did, however, fit beneath the door. “We’ve got to try to get leverage,” I fantasized. Evin watched me skeptically as I tried pushing the rod upward on our side of the door. Sheer despair made me try pointless things. The door didn’t budge a centimeter, of course; all that happened was that the rod bent slightly.

  At that moment we heard the sound of an engine outside, soon followed by footsteps on the stairs. The men were back. But judging by the footsteps and voices, there were more than two of them. Now they opened the door to the apartment. Frantically I searched for somewhere to hide the rod, and hurriedly slipped it into the sleeve of my blouse. They entered the apartment and dumped something heavy in the hallway.

  Then the door to our room opened. There stood Abu Haitham and Eleas, as well as another ISIS man, who had brought Lena and Amna from our former prison. The two of them stood absolutely terrified in the hallway. The men had also bought carpets and bedclothes: all new, but very cheap. They unrolled a carpet with red-and-blue curlicues. The Iraqi carried a second one upstairs. “Just to make it a bit cozier here, girls,” he said jovially.

  The man who’d brought Lena and Amna left again. After carefully bolting the door behind him, they asked us cheerfully to come into the “kitchen,” or rather what was left of it. We were each given a bottle of orange juice, as a welcome drink, so to speak. They were clearly very confident that we had no chance of escaping. They even untied our hands to make it easier for us to drink. When Abu Haitham saw the sores on my wrists he said, “Oh, what’s this? Has our wild child been up to her silly tricks again? We’ll soon knock that out of you.” He laughed.

  I acted as if I couldn’t understand a word. I didn’t take a sip of the orange juice, either, because I was convinced the Libyan had mixed drugs into the drink, drugs to sedate us. It was like a cup of poison, which you shouldn’t touch in any circumstances. While my friends took slow, cautious sips, I racked my brains desperately to work out what we could do to get out of this. Because now it was crystal clear what their intentions were; the men’s good spirits confirmed all our worst fears.

  When Evin and Amna had finished their drinks, Abu Haitham ordered them to go upstairs and wait for him and his colleague. Evin, who was standing right next to me, gave me a look of despair. It broke my heart; I wanted so much to help her.

  All of a sudden I had an idea. I stretched my arm out behind my back and let the iron rod slide out. Without their noticing I handed it to my friend, who immediately hid it beneath her veil.

  “You can clobber him with it,” I whispered to her in Kurdish.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll kill him before he can do anything,” she whispered back. The men hadn’t noticed a thing.

  “Come on, come on, hurry up!” Abu Haitham harassed them. There was impatience in the Libyan’s eyes. He looked like a starving predator. I could virtually smell his lust for sex, which I found utterly repulsive. Everything, absolutely everything about this man was hideous.

  Evin obediently went up the stairs, probably because she wanted to avoid them discovering her weapon, the iron rod. But the other girl, Amna, stayed stock-still, as if hypnotized, until Abu Haitham gave her a slap and dragged her with force to the stairs. Eleas helped him haul her up. Tears of fury and despair ran down her face. But of course she didn’t have the strength to resist these two men.

  No sooner had Eleas taken Amna upstairs than he came back down to hustle us into the room I’d been locked in with Evin earlier. Now the new carpet was on the floor, as well as t
he bedclothes. I clutched my bottle of orange juice as I entered the room. “Make yourselves comfortable. We’ll be down for you soon,” he said, before locking the door from the outside. We were trapped.

  Lena and I didn’t say anything to each other. We didn’t share the same bond of trust that existed between Evin and me, so there wasn’t anything to say anyway. I didn’t know exactly how she felt. But at that terrible moment I had the sense of being all alone in the world. I wasn’t really aware of Lena sitting next to me on the rug. And this meant I heard even more acutely the screams and noises of struggle and despair coming from above. My beloved Evin screamed as if her throat were being slit. It was unbearable. I was so desperate to help her, but there was nothing I could do.

  Determined to put an end to the horror, I smashed on the floor the bottle of orange juice I’d brought from the kitchen. Lena watched me, probably thinking that I was planning to use the broken bottle to defend myself when the men came for us. “We’ll kill them,” she said, showing me that she still had her bottle too. But I knew this was impossible. With our improvised weapons the two of us we were as little a match for the men as Evin and Amna upstairs.

  There was only one way to avoid being violated: death. That’s why I decided to put an end to my life. It was the only option left to me to save my honor and the honor of my family. I thought of my father, who’d always taught us children that moral and religious values were the most important things to defend. “Everything else in life is of secondary importance,” he told us. At this time I didn’t know whether my father was still alive. But that was irrelevant. I would stick to his principles anyway. If my family found out they’d surely be very proud of me. And even if they never were to know, it was still the right decision, as I would go to my death pure and unsullied. This thought filled me with a profound sense of inner peace.