Tuesday, July 25, 2017

'I ran out of tears’: Yazidi schoolgirl reveals how she was raped every day for 6 months by an ‘ugly beast’ of an ISIS jihadi when she was just 14

(Daily Mail) A Yazidi schoolgirl has revealed her horrifying story of how she was kidnapped and used as a sex slave by ISIS fighters when she was just 14.

Ekhlas was captured along with thousands of Yazidi women when ISIS jihadis swept through northern Iraq in 2014.

She tried to escape to Mount Sinjar, where 50,000 members of the long-persecuted sect had fled.

But, talking to Victoria Derbyshire, she revealed how she was raped every day for six months by jihadis.

Now 16, Ekhlas said: 'My life was beautiful but two hours changed my life. They came with their black flag. They killed our men and raped our girls.

'They killed my father in front of my own eyes. I saw blood on their hands. All I heard was screaming and crying, everyone was starving, they weren't feeding anyone.

'I saw a man who was over 40 take a 10-year-old girl. The girl was screaming. I'll never forget those screams.'

Ekhlas was chosen as a sex slave out 150 girls by a jihadi when he drew lots and kept for six months.

She said: 'He was so ugly, like a beast, with his long hair. He smelt so bad. I was so frightened I couldn't look at him.

'Every day for six months he raped me. I tried to kill myself. How am I telling you this without crying? I tell you I ran out of tears.'

But Ekhlas managed to remain strong because she said, 'my smile was my weapon'.

She managed to miraculously escape her abuser when he was out fighting and found her way to a refugee camp.

There she met Jacqueline Isaac, an American lawyer, and was resettled in Germany three months later.

Jacqueline said: 'When I first met her, her head was down, all of their heads were down. There was no eye contact in the beginning.'

Ehklas is now receiving therapy at a psychiatric hospital for her trauma, but she says she wants to be a lawyer in the future.

She added: 'You probably think I am as strong as a rock but I want you to know I am wounded inside. I have my pain and it's like 100 deaths.'

Nearly 10,000 Yazidis were killed or captured when ISIS took over Mount Sinjar in the summer of 2014.

An estimated thirty per cent of that number were executed by gunshot, beheading or being burned alive.

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