The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

by Farida Khalaf

  Evin didn’t say anything. But secretly I think she understood my motivation better than she was willing to admit.

  AT SOME POINT in the night, we heard footsteps approaching our cell. We jumped. What did they want from us now? The lock rattled and the door opened. Galib entered, accompanied by an ISIS guard. Had they come to fetch Evin? I clung on tight to my friend. No, don’t take her away, I thought in desperation. Having taken everything else from me, please leave me Evin at least!

  “Get up!” Galib bellowed. At first it wasn’t clear whether he meant Evin or both of us. Neither of us made a move to get to our feet. We stayed on our mattress and I held Evin even more tightly.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Galib took a step toward Evin and grabbed her. I started crying when he pulled her away from me.

  “Evin!” I sobbed.

  “Let me stay with her!” she begged. “Farida needs me.”

  Galib laughed. “At this very moment there’s someone else who needs you even more.”

  He yanked her roughly toward the door. I refused to let go of her hand and tried to follow them. But Galib shoved me back into the room. “No, you’re staying there. The Emir will decide what’s going to happen to you. And I can tell you now: he’s absolutely furious at all your antics. So prepare for the worst!”

  “My little sister is ill,” Evin said, making another attempt. “Can’t you see? She cannot be without me.”

  “Don’t tell fibs, girl,” Galib snapped at her. Grabbing Evin’s arm, he wrenched her into the hallway while she still continued to resist.

  “She’s an epileptic. If I don’t care for her she’ll die!” she exclaimed.

  “She doesn’t die that easily. We’ve seen that already.”

  The man with Galib locked the door behind the two of them. “Evin!” I screamed, hammering wildly on the wood. Now I was alone in the cell. I heard the footsteps getting further away. Evin’s protests grew quieter. Where were they taking her?

  “Evin!” I kept crying when the men were long out of earshot. “Evin! Evin!” I felt lonelier than I’d ever been in my life before. Now they’d taken away the last thing I had.

  For a while I just sat there. Tears ran down my face. I’d hit rock bottom.

  I felt as if someone had pulled a plug out of me and all the life that I’d once possessed had been released. There wasn’t a spark of energy left in my body, nor of hope. Everything was lost. The only thing I wanted was to put an end to it all. I wanted to die. This time, however, the desire did not come from a desperation to escape some concrete threat. It was far too late for that anyway; everything had already happened. Now I just wanted peace, I wanted to remove myself from the cruel world I’d fallen into. But how?

  I looked down at myself. I was still shrouded in the black material I’d been wearing when Emir Zeyad carried me across the street and back into my prison. Otherwise there was nothing else in the room except for the two mattresses, the barred window, and a pole with several clothes hooks fixed to the wall.

  The material, the clothes hooks—could I use them to kill myself? The last time I’d tried, my veil had torn, ruining my plan. But I’d been in a hurry because I was afraid my “owner” might come at any moment. This time I’d approach it with greater care.

  So I took off the black cloak and started tearing it into strips. I tied these into a rope that seemed pretty solid. Once again I made a noose and tied it to the pole. This also appeared to be fairly solidly anchored in the wall. It just had to work, I thought. Enough was enough. I no longer wanted to be any part of this horror.

  I put the noose around my neck. Unlike last time, there was no bed I could jump from. So I lifted my legs. I felt the noose tightening. I gasped. I felt dizzy. I don’t know for sure what happened after that. I presume my legs fell back down to the floor and prevented me from strangling myself.

  I was dangling there in a semiconscious state, with my head in a noose. I kept trying to pull my legs up to accelerate the process of dying. But each time I lost consciousness and with it the capacity to maintain control over my limbs. Eventually the hook tore away from the wall and I crashed to the floor. I’d failed again.

  Emir Zeyad came in the morning and found me crumpled on the floor of the cell. He flew into a rage. “You miserable bitch!” he yelled. “If you’re that desperate to die maybe I can help you. I’m going to teach you a lesson!”

  He threw me over his shoulder, taking the pole with the hooks too as he carried me from the cell. Strangely enough, it didn’t seem to bother the Emir at all that I was totally uncovered and only wearing the hated blue dress he’d abused me in. He paid no attention to the fact that the other men saw me like this. On the contrary, he encouraged them to follow him. They didn’t need a second invitation. I was taken into the room where Evin and I had been put when we arrived. Zeyad laid me across a table and got someone to fetch some electric cable. Then he flogged me as hard as he could.

  “You devilish whore!” he berated me. “Did you think I’d let you play games with me? I’ll show you!”

  He flogged my back until the blood started to flow beneath my blue dress. A group of about twenty men were standing watching. They were egging him on and accompanying his violent rage with cries of Allahu Akbar! “Go on, show her!” they shouted. “Show her how we treat people who pray to Satan!”

  Zeyad was beside himself. He kept thrashing me ever more wildly. Sometimes he used the cable, then the pole with the hooks he’d brought with him. He abused my entire body, not sparing my legs or head either. He whacked my face with the pole, injuring my left eye so I couldn’t see out of it anymore. I think he wanted to kill me, or at least he didn’t care whether or not I survived. I still bear the scars today of his inconceivably brutal actions.

  Eventually, when the pain became unendurable, I passed out.

  WHEN I SLOWLY came around again I was back in my cell. I lay in a state of semiconsciousness, sensing that nobody had attended to my wounds. The blood on my back and the rest of my body had dried. Soon the wounds began to inflame and I felt feverish. After two days the guard gave me a little water, but nobody else checked in on me.

  At first I was too weak even to go to the toilet, something I’m ashamed to admit. But in my helplessness I had no other choice than to urinate in the cell I lay in, which only exacerbated the hygiene situation. I could barely stomach my own stench. Later I banged on the door and, watched by my guard, crept on all fours to the toilet to relieve myself. If only I’d died, I kept thinking. How much longer did I have to put up with this torture? When would I finally be released from my ordeal?

  Mostly I just lay there trying to cope with the pain. I thought a lot about my family, especially my favorite brother, Delan. I saw the two of us racing in the car through the mountains, felt the sun on my face and the breeze blowing through the open window. What a lovely, carefree time we’d had together! We’d never realized how wonderful our life had been until it was suddenly wrenched away from us. I was terribly worried about him, and about Serhad and Dad too, who’d been driven off with him. Where had the men with the trucks taken them? Were they all right, or were they imprisoned like me? Had any of them even survived the day our village was attacked? I recalled with horror the shots that had echoed around the school building. If only I knew they were all right, everything here would be easier to bear.

  But I was also happy that they couldn’t see me in this pitiful state. If they knew how dreadful my current existence was they’d make themselves sick with worry and grief. And I’d almost die of shame in front of them.

  I thought of Evin too. Where was my friend now? Would I ever see her again? How was life with her new “owner”? Or had she perhaps found a way to escape? I deeply wished that to be the case, but didn’t really believe it.

  I don’t know exactly how long I stayed in the cell in that appalling state. Whether it was a few days or a week, what difference did it make anyway? Time passed but it no longer had any significance for me. At
one point I wondered if the Emir had forgotten me. But although I was feeling dreadful and in urgent need of medical attention, I was glad not to see my tormentor.

  Eventually I learned that Zeyad had gone off again to fight somewhere else. Hopefully his opponents would get him this time, I thought angrily. I wished every ill in this world on that man. I really believe that if he stood before me today I wouldn’t hesitate one second to kill him. It would only be fair and just in view of what he did to me.

  Unfortunately, however, my sinister hopes proved unfounded. The Emir returned victorious. And, like the last time, I heard the Allahu Akbar cries outside again. The men were celebrating their leader.

  In my cell I grew nervous. Would Zeyad want to pleasure himself with a woman again after the battle? I couldn’t for the life of me imagine that in my current state I could appear attractive to him. I was filthy, badly injured, and barely able to move. But I wasn’t able to put up a fight, either.

  Shortly afterward I heard the footsteps of several men heading for my cell. I listened anxiously and full of terrible foreboding. Was the Emir among them? Would he try to rape me again? Terrified, I backed once more into a corner. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect myself.

  The lock rattled and the door opened. Emir Zeyad and two of his men stood before me, their legs apart. “You’re still here, then, you stinking whore!” the ISIS commander said in a tone of boredom. “But I can’t look at you anymore. Or smell you either.” He pointedly held his nose.

  “Get her out of my sight!” he ordered the men.

  { Seven }

  In the Military Camp

  On the Emir’s orders the ISIS soldiers carried me out of my cell. I was in such a bad way I couldn’t even struggle, let alone walk. The men made no effort to handle me as one ought an injured person. They threw me roughly onto the backseat of a military vehicle. And to my horror they thanked the Emir. What for? I wondered warily.

  We drove along bumpy roads toward the desert. I fleetingly thought of how Delan had taught me to drive. In my father’s Opel Omega we’d simply head off into the mountains and, when we were out of sight, Delan would let me get behind the wheel. I loved turning the key and feeling the engine juddering into life. On the deserted tracks of Mount Sinjar I was allowed to drive as fast as I liked. Usually we never came across another soul on our trips. Delan and I set so many speed records, or at least we fancied we did.

  But those outings with Delan seemed years ago now. Today I was strapped into a car driven by sinister-looking men, and I had no idea where we were going. Later, I picked up from what they were saying that we were heading for the Omar gas field, and from the position of the golden sun standing above the horizon, I calculated that it must be afternoon. Otherwise I had little orientation. I also thought that they might just chuck me out by the side of the road and leave me to die. But they had other plans for me.

  The soldiers took me to an ISIS outpost near the gas field, a military camp that was essentially a collection of white living containers in the dust of the desert. As I later found out, around a hundred of Assad’s soldiers used to be stationed here, then the rebels of the Free Syrian Army. Finally ISIS had occupied the camp. It was right beside the gas field, which had been so keenly contested between the government and the rebels. The jihadis were trying to keep hold of this important resource.

  Our vehicle stopped outside the container where the women of the camp were kept prisoner. It was in the center of the camp, surrounded on all sides by soldiers’ billets. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Evin come to the door. She was wearing a black veil. The reflection of the evening sun danced around her beautiful brown eyes. “Farida?” she said when the men opened the rear door and she found me slumped in the backseat. I must have painted a shockingly sorry picture. “Is it really you?”

  “Evin!” I moaned.

  We cried tears of joy at seeing each other again, something we hadn’t reckoned on. My friend said something to the men and watched them carry me to the container, putting me down by the door. “Be careful with her,” she urged them.

  “She’s a tough one this girl, she’ll cope,” the men said. But they were wrong; I could barely move on my own. I had to crawl to make it to one of the mattresses. It was a great humiliation for me to have to move like that in front of the others. But I had no choice. Though deeply ashamed, I managed to smile at Evin and the six other girls she shared this space with.

  “My God, Farida, what did he do to you?” Evin asked when she could see just how bad a shape I was in. She crouched down to look at my injuries, but I waved her away as if they looked worse than they felt.

  “He’s an animal—you’re well aware of that.”

  She nodded. We didn’t need to discuss it any further. “But now you’re here,” she said.

  “Yes, I’m here.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. What happened in this camp? And what role did we girls play? When I asked Evin her reply was evasive.

  “We help with the day-to-day chores,” she said.

  “What else?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what else?’ ”

  Changing the subject, my friend introduced me to the other six Yazidis. Nase, Besma, Pervan, Sila, Sumeya, and Reva were younger than us. They all slept on a pile of mattresses on the floor. None of them came from Kocho itself, but from the same area, which meant I was roughly able to work out which clan each of them belonged to, and whether we were distantly related. I immediately asked them if they had any news as to the whereabouts of our family members. But the girls had scant information. Like Evin and me, they’d spent most of their captivity imprisoned somewhere. One of them had heard that the older women and children from Kocho were still in Tal Afar. But they had no idea how they were being treated or what sort of conditions they were living in. Were my mom and brothers there too? And how were they? I was suddenly overcome by a wave of longing.

  If only I knew that they were still alive and all right, and that I’d see them again someday, I could cope with all this, I thought. How lovely it would be if my mom could make fresh lemonade again and hide it in the fridge to stop me from swiping it prematurely with one of my friends, Evin or Nura. Just thinking about the drink, I fancied I could smell the aroma of the lemons from our garden, and my mouth started watering. How wonderful our life in Kocho had been! In retrospect, the time prior to the catastrophe seemed almost free from worry: our hours together in the garden, the prayers on the roof, the family excursions to Lalish. I knew that my life would never again be so carefree. But if there was a chance I could recover even a fraction of what I’d lost, I was prepared to fight for it and stay alive.

  “Don’t lose heart, Farida,” Evin said. “We’ll find a way home.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I sniffed.

  “I’m absolutely certain. You’ve just got to get better again. Then we’ll find a way out,” she promised, carefully stroking my forehead, which Zeyad’s blows had disfigured. “Everything will be fine; you’ll see. We’re going to get through this together.”

  Evin helped me into a small bathroom situated exactly in the middle of the two rooms that made up the container and which was accessible via doors on both sides. My friend washed the wounds on my head, legs, and back. They were burning. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor right away,” she said. Evin gave me some clean clothes: a skirt and blouse. Then she took me back into the room with the mattresses. To my astonishment I noticed that there were even two windows, although they were covered by curtains.

  As sunset was approaching the girls stood in a row at the window. Knowing what they were about to do, I burst into tears. I tried in vain to stand up beside them, as was right and proper. My friends raised their hands in prayer. In my seated position I copied them. “Amen, amen, amen,” we mumbled quietly so that no one outside could hear. “May the Lord protect our religion. Our religion will survive.”

  Now the muezzin was calling the ISIS soldiers to prayer too. The girls s
cattered. Soon afterward a man banged on the door. “Come on, it’s time,” he commanded. Wrapping their black veils around their heads they followed him outside. Evin explained to the man that I was too weak to take part in the obligatory prayer. He glanced at me and nodded.

  “But as soon as she’s recovered she’s joining in,” he said.

  “Of course,” Evin assured him.

  “Who does she belong to?”

  Evin gave a very quiet answer before scurrying out of the room with the other girls.

  I crawled to the window and pushed the curtain slightly to one side. Using my arms, I managed to pull myself up far enough to be able to peer outside. As I said, our container was in the middle of the camp, surrounded by other identical-looking ones. Between them was an empty space where one hundred ISIS soldiers had now gathered. Many were wearing half-length beige tunics and cloth pants in the same color beneath. Like the other ISIS men I’d encountered up till now, they all had beards, but only a few wore turbans. The fashion in this camp was for round prayer caps.

  Kneeling on their prayer mats, the men carried out the Islamic rituals in sync. Behind them and slightly to one side stood the group of girls, strictly covered in black veils. They too were praying in the Islamic fashion.

  I didn’t know what to think of this. Hadn’t our fathers and grandfathers exhorted us in no uncertain terms never to betray our religion? On the other hand, with their secret prayer in the container, had the girls just proven that our faith was still dear to their hearts? At any event, I was glad that I didn’t have to stand out there with them. Not yet.

  When Evin came back she didn’t look me in the eye. And because I knew that it was upsetting for her I refrained from mentioning the prayer. “What were you just talking to that man about?” I asked her instead.

  “Nothing,” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” I was, of course, referring to the man’s question about whom I “belonged” to. Evin clearly knew more than she was letting on. “How does it work here? Who is our ‘owner’?”