The #Hol camp# administration made a statement warning that thousands of #ISIS# families in the camp are waiting for an opportunity to revive, saying that another possible Turkish intervention would enable the ISIS organization to revive its cells once again
Located in the Hol (al-Hawl) district of the Heseke canton, the Hol Camp is considered the most dangerous refugee camp in the world. The camp consists of 9 sectors, houses 56,097 people, including 29,152 people who hold Iraqi citizenship (7,791 families) and 18,863 Syrians (4,998 families). The camp is also home to 8,109 women and children of ISIS foreign mercenaries (2,416 families) of 54 foreign nationalities. The ISIS women and children are held in the ninth sector of the camp.
The ISIS terror in the camp is possible in part because the countries of origin of many of the jihadists do not take responsibility for their nationals. With the latest wave of Turkish attacks, the murders in the camp have also increased. At least 30 people have been killed in the camp since the beginning of this year. However, many murders remain undetected, as people simply disappear and their bodies are buried under tents or in other places.
The Hol Camp administration made a statement on Monday and pointed to the effects of the increasingly ongoing attacks against North and East Syria, especially in regard to attacks against the camps where families of ISIS mercenaries are settled and attempt to revive.
Jihan Hanan, Co-Chair of the Hol Camp administration, read the statement in the presence of other camp administration members and workers. The statement pointed out that: “The Turkish regime is attempting to de-stabilize the region and its security by making threats using false pretexts like defending their borders.”
It was pointed out in the statement that the pretexts and accusations which the Turkish state is using to expand its occupation in Syria and the Middle East, as well as their support for terrorist organizations in Syria which are trying to destroy the project of the Democratic Autonomous Administration, have become clear to everyone.
The statement made clear that the Turkish occupation army is using UAVs to target civilian and military bases, posing a great danger to the stability in North and East Syria.
“Thousands of families of the ISIS organization living in the Hol Camp are waiting for a suitable opportunity to revive. In addition, Turkish interference in the region will disturb the stability of the region and enable ISIS to organize themselves in Syria. This may weaken the monitoring of the camp and bring along attempts of escape, and at the same time weaken the engagement of the SDF in the war against the Turkish state and enable the ISIS organization to revive its cells once again,” said the camp administration.
The statement continued: “We, the Hol Camp Administration, stand up to the responsibilities for the safety and health of the residents in the camp and as everyone knows, there are many ISIS terrorist cells in this camp and they are like a bomb about to explode.”
The statement concluded by calling on the international community and international organizations to stand up to their responsibilities of defending the regions of North and East Syria.[1]

Title: ‘Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’: Gender and the #ISIS# Phenomenon
Author: Erin Marie Saltman, Melanie Smith
Place of publication: UK
Publisher: nstitute for Strategic Dialogue
Release date: 2015

This report explores the phenomenon of Western females traveling to Syria and Iraq in support of ISIS. It first elaborates upon the motivations for these women and girls to migrate, explores some of the diverse range of profiles that have been monitored, and clarifies the role that they are likely to encompass once arriving in ISIS-held territory. Additionally, the report aims to elucidate how current government prevention and de-radicalisation infrastructure may be adapted to deal with this trend.[1]

Title: “Barriers to post-#ISIS# reconciliation in Iraq: Case study of Tel Afar, Ninewa”
Author: Sarah Sanbar
Place of publication: France
Publisher: Kuwait Program at Sciences Po
Release date: 2020.[1]

Authored by: Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic
Categories: Human Rights, Violent Conflict
Sub-Categories: Mass Atrocities, National Security Forces and Armed Groups, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), Violent Extremism
Country: Syria
Region: Middle East and North Africa
Year: 2016
Citation: Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. “They Came to Destroy”: #ISIS# Crimes Against the Yazidis. Geneva: United Nations Human Rights Council, 2016.

Summary

ISIS has committed the crime of genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Yazidis, thousands of whom are held captive in the Syrian Arab Republic where they are subjected to almost unimaginable horrors. The present report, which focuses on violations committed in Syria, is based on 45 interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists. Considerable documentary material was used to corroborate information collected by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
Syrian Arab Republic. ISIS has sought to destroy the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community, and erasing their identity as Yazidis. The public statements and conduct of ISIS and its fighters clearly demonstrate that ISIS intended to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, composing the majority of the world’s Yazidi population, in whole or in part. In the present report, the Commission has made wide-ranging recommendations to the United Nations, the Governments of Syria and Iraq, and the wider international community concerning the protection of and care for the Yazidi community of Sinjar. While noting States’ obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Commission repeated its call for the Security Council to refer urgently the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, or to establish an ad hoc tribunal with relevant geographic
and temporal jurisdiction.[1]

Title: A demographic documenation of# ISIS# ’s attack on the Yazidi village of #Kocho#
Author: Dr Valeria Cetorelli
Publisher:LSE Middle East Centre Report
Release date: 2019
This study is the first publication of the Yazidi Victims Demographic Documentation Project, the objective of which is to identify every victim of ISIS’s attack on the Yazidi community of Sinjar. Kocho was selected to be the subject of this first demographic analysis due to the large numbers of Yazidi men, women and children killed and kidnapped from this village, and because of the distinct timeline of the ISIS attack on Kocho as compared to other locations in Sinjar. As the Yazidi Victims Demographic Documentation Project progresses, similar analyses will be conducted for all Yazidi villages and the town of Sinjar. It is envisaged that the consolidated database resulting from this project will have multiple short, medium and long-term uses. These include, for example, a data pool that can assist in identification of remains in mass graves, and which provides reliable information for use in planning for and prioritisation of members of the Yazidi community, including provision of counselling, increased medical interventions, and gender- and youth-specific needs. It is also envisaged, and is an integral aspect of the methodological planning, that the Yazidi Victims Demographic Documentation Project will play a significant role in achieving accountability for the crimes ISIS has committed against the Yazidis. The consolidated database of victims provides reliable information of high probative value for use in criminal prosecutions before national, regional and international courts and tribunals. The documentation project’s data is also capable of informing broader understandings of transitional justice, including material and symbolic reparations.[1]

Ben Dubow
Conspiracy theories may sound deranged to the uninitiated, but dictators and populists rely on them. Part I of a four-part series.
Is there a conspiracy afoot among Kurdish separatists, Zionists, and #ISIS# to use feminism to bring down the Iranian regime? Are Nazis, jihadis, and gays working in concert to exterminate Russian history and culture? Did the West prefer to let its own people die en masse rather than admit that crushed dragon bone contains the cure to COVID?
Authoritarian propaganda can often, to Western ears, sound beyond belief. Laughable, even. But to those who follow closely, and the respective regimes who benefit from such beliefs, these outlandish claims are self-evident. Effective propagandists not only understand the assumptions, presuppositions, and biases of their audiences, but use their control over the creators and distributors of information to shape assumptions as well.
This four-part series will explore how the regimes in Russia, China, and Iran use propaganda to cement their power. This first piece explains how propaganda works.
The structure of propaganda can be defined as including a transmitter (the propaganda originator), the channel through which propaganda travels, and the receiver (the target of the propaganda).
Those familiar with audio-visual systems, or with electronic engineering, will recognize this framework as Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication, which has been essential in describing how information propagates.
Shannon’s work also introduced a metric called surprise. Surprise measures how much can be predicted about the next item in a sequence based on the information already available. The greater the surprise in each item, the harder the next is to predict, and the more instructions are needed, and processing required, for decoding the message. For instance, a message containing a 10 by 10 pixel image of an all-black square, need only be encoded with the instructions “repeat black 100 times.” An image of the same size but with entirely random colors requires instructions for each of the 100 pixels.
These general concepts map well to how humans process new information. More surprising information — that is, new, less expected information — is much harder to process. Economists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman propose thinking broadly (if not literally) of two systems for processing information: Type I, or subconscious, and Type II, conscious and intentional. Type I thinking accepts what it processes automatically, whereas new information it cannot process, it turns over to Type II.
The gold standard for successful propaganda is evading our Type II system. Propaganda that our subconscious can decode — propaganda with the least surprise, or least deviation from our expectations — will be accepted unquestioningly. Propaganda that triggers Type II thinking can still be accepted, but faces greater scrutiny, which is clearly anathema to the originator.
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Successful propagandists, therefore, understand the receivers of their propaganda, above all their expectations, biases, and presuppositions (collectively, their worldview.) By delivering propaganda that follows naturally from the existing beliefs of their audience, the successful propagandist reduces surprise and increases the probability that their audience will accept it without question.
Controlling worldviews is therefore key to the authoritarian project. To do so, such regimes focus heavily on controlling channels of information — communication networks, education systems, and religious institutions through which information propagates. Total control of media channels allows authoritarians to minimize the spread of alternate worldviews and ensures that everything from entertainment to sports to news reaffirms the dominant worldview.
Of course, much of the information we process comes from human interaction or our own daily lives — and this is often the opening that dissenters can exploit. In Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan Province, for example, Arabs experienced water shortages, consumed Arabic-language media from abroad, and took to the streets by the thousands last year. In Tehran, Isfahan, and other cosmopolitan cities, liberals could access foreign media and communicate through peer-to-peer networks. Kurds in the northwest could access broadcasts from Iraqi Kurdistan.
All this adds up to an unraveling of the regime’s informational control and the most robust challenge to its authority in a generation. In part II, the failures of Iranian propaganda beyond the state-controlled culture will be examined, along with the consequences of the protests that have roiled the country for nearly half a decade, and especially in 2022.
Ben Dubow is CTO and founder of Omelas, a firm that provides data and analysis on how states manipulate the web to achieve their geopolitical goals and is a Non-resident Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.)
Europe’s Edge is an online journal covering crucial topics in the transatlantic policy debate. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.[1]

Title: ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ISIS FIGHTERS
Author: Hawre Ahmed
Publisher: FAU
Release date: 2020

Hawre AhmedYear: 2020Download E-book VersionThe Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) emerged from the ash of unsolved political, religious and sectarian conflicts in the Middle East that motivated many extreme terrorists around the globe to join their ugly, savage, inexplicable, nihilistic, valueless, barbaric actions by using their self-interpretation and extreme verses of Quran, then became the greatest threat to the humanity in recent years. It started invading a big swath in Iraq and Syria and committing most core international crimes, including the crime of genocide against Yazidi community in 2014, war crimes, crimes against humanity, specifically sexual and gender-based violence, abduction, use of prohibited weapons, extrajudicial killings, torture, indiscriminate attacks, recruitment and use of children, attacks against religious and ethnic groups, displacing civilian people.
As a response to the threat of ISIS, the international community formed a global military coalition to defeat them in Sep 2014, and the United Nation Human Rights Council on 22 Aug 2011 established the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria (IICIS) to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since Mar 2011 in Syria, which since the emerging of ISIS, the Commission recorded the crime of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Then the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2017 created the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh (UNITAD) to support domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable by collecting evidences in Iraq of acts to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by ISIS.
During the fighting against ISIS many ISIS fighters were captured by different states and authorities, the Iraqi and Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) judiciaries convicted at least 7,374 ISIS suspects, In northeast Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) hold about 12,000 suspected of ISIS affiliation, including 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 different nationalities. Turkey holds 2,280 ISIS members, and many ISIS-linked suspects were arrested in western countries. All these individuals are being dealt differently according to different legal systems, but none has been convicted for committing core international crimes yet.This research aims to find answers to questions under the international criminal law jurisprudence which relate to the accountability for the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the possibility of prosecuting them before an international criminal tribunal for responsibility of core international crimes, specifically tried to find answers for two questions:
Did ISIS fighters commit core international crimes? if yes How can the ISIS fighters be brought into justice?[1]

Autor: Ouafae Sandi
Verleger: UNDP
Release date: October 2022

This study aims to better understand the plight of families associated with #ISIL# , including those who remain displaced or imprisoned, to identify opportunities for rehabilitation and sustainable reintegration through gender-responsive recommendations.
Mostly women and children, families perceived to be affiliated with ISIL require mental and psychosocial care, livelihoods support, and often access to social services and housing options.
This study comes in a critical time when the government of Iraq, with support from the international community, is leading a strategic process to repatriate Iraqi families from Al-hol camp in north-east Syria.[1]

Title: After #ISIS# Perspectives of displaced communities from Ninewa on return to Iraq’s disputed territory
Place of publication: Netherlands
Publisher: PAX
Release date: 2015

Recently, military developments and international involvement have resulted in ISIS retreating from some areas previously under its control in Iraq. As these areas become accessible again, IDP communities struggle to return while the potential for renewed conflict remains alarmingly high. In order to understand current conflict dynamics and prepare for conflict sensitive peace building programs responding to realities on the ground, PAX has commissioned a qualitative research among Ninewa IDP communities in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. The perceptions of IDP communities on return and insights from stakeholders on community relations in a post ISIS Ninewa have been used as a basis for analysis in this report.
Ninewa Governorate, formerly known as Mosul Governorate, is wedged between Kurdish northern Iraq and Arabic Central Iraq. Large areas are part of the Disputed Internal Boundaries (DIBs) areas, contested between the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Government of Iraq (GoI). This area is home to the majority of Iraq’s minority groups, and is the most diverse region in the country. It is home to Christians of various denominations, Yazidis, Shabak, Turkmen, Kaka’is, Kurds and Arabs. Historically, the area has been the subject of Saddam Hussein’s Arabization policies, and Arab tribes were relocated to this area to change its demographic composition. This history of demographic engineering continues to fuel land disputes today and has contributed to marginalization, lack of administrative clarity and weak social cohesion, which have been exacerbated in the years following the removal of the Saddam regime in 2003 and have ultimately paved the way for ISIS taking control in 2014.
Although IDP communities report tolerable relations between their communities prior to ISIS, the social fabric in the area is extremely fragile. A closer look reveals that multiple factors, not easily expressed by civilians in a repressive climate, are feeding tense inter-community grievances.
Ninewa’s history of displacement shows a trend of uprooting civilian populations, either as a result of strategic government policies, as a consequence of the persecution of minorities or following economic incentives. The multiple displacements of minorities from the city of Mosul to other areas in Ninewa or to the Kurdistan Region-Iraq (KRI) served as a prelude to the almost complete migration of minorities out of Ninewa following the control of ISIS in June 2014.
Impacts of ISIS on the future of Ninewa’s social fabric are complicated and they extend far beyond physical displacement of people from the area. Among IDP communities, apart from the general polarization between minorities and Kurds vis-à-vis Sunni Arabs (victims vs. perpetrators), many divisions exist between minorities and even within the various minority communities. This context poses a real challenge for a peaceful return and possibilities for social cohesion in Ninewa Governorate after ISIS.
IDP communities from Ninewa are highly disillusioned by the lack of protection by either the Iraqi Army or the Kurdish Peshmerga. The local authorities of Ninewa, the Governorate and Provincial Council, have been displaced to Erbil, Dohuk or Bagdad and prove unable to influence military developments on the ground or to provide adequate services in the IDP camps. For Ninewa communities, the national government in Bagdad is increasingly absent. They are instead depending on support within their own networks, on religious and ethnic lines. In this context, and in the absence of clear prospects for return, IDP communities look for resettlement abroad or to developing their own militias on religious or ethnic basis. This poses a serious threat to return scenarios, may facilitate revenge, and further fuelling renewed conflict.
Division and militarization of Ninewa communities is also a result of a crisis of leadership within the political process. While most political leaders of Ninewa communities are following pro-Erbil (Kurdish), pro-Baghdad (central Iraq) or international agendas, Sunni leaders struggle to provide a strong alternative for ISIS. Many Ba’ath officials, who were removed from power since 2003, have supported waves of anti-government protests and ultimately ISIS. Accordingly, some stakeholders argue that a review of the de-baathification policy is essential for peace and stability in Ninewa.
Since last year, the international military support for the Peshmerga in their struggle against ISIS is favoring the Kurds in the DIBS areas, and further polarizing the volatile situation. Assessments and facts on the ground show that KRG has consolidated its position in Ninewa, while an official settlement on the status of the DIBs remains absent. Although many Arab IDPs from all over Iraq have found safe refuge in KRI, Sunni IDP communities from Ninewa are fearful from being portrayed as ISIS supporters. In some areas which have been recaptured by Peshmerga from ISIS, some worrying incidents have been reported of displacement of Arab Sunni communities and return of predominantly Kurdish IDPs. If these incidents turn into a trend, this may severely affect peaceful return scenarios to Ninewa.
According to International Humanitarian Law, civilians do not only have the right to seek safety in another part of a country, they are also legally entitled to protection against forcible return or resettlement. While a settlement of the DIBS issue is vital for post ISIS political and social reconstruction, the new authorities in Ninewa, as well as intervening international agencies, should carefully design conflict sensitive programming in order to contribute to post conflict resolution and the peaceful return of all IDPs.
PAX is highly concerned about the lack of a comprehensive peacebuilding strategy complementing military operations in Iraq. For such a peacebuilding strategy to be effective, planning should be longterm and responding to the realities and specific local histories on the ground. For the case of Ninewa, the return of all displaced communities after conflict is essential for restructuring the social fabric and building fundaments for peace and reconciliation.[1]

Karwan Faidhi Dri
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Eight-year-old Mariam was enjoying time with her friends in the Yazidi heartland of Shingal on a sizzling day of 2014 when fighters from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (#ISIS# ) stormed their town, abducting her and thousands others from her community. Little did she know she would later be forced to marry a member of the terrorist group and raise two of his orphan children in Palestinian hometown.
Wearing a black abaya which covers her entire body, Mariam, the pseudonym of the Yazidi woman, agreed to speak to Rudaw's Nasir Ali via Zoom on Sunday after days of rejection on the grounds that she would violate Islamic codes if she speaks to a stranger.
She recounted her nine-year trip from Shingal to Palestine, experiencing violence, injustice and sexual tape.
When ISIS took control of Shingal, the terrorist group abducted 6,417 Yazidis, including 3,548 women and girls. So far, 3,570 of these people have been rescued, according to the latest data obtained by Rudaw English from the office to rescue the missing Yazidis, which is affiliated to the Kurdistan Region Presidency.
Start of an ordeal
Mariam and her two brothers were visiting their uncle in the same town when ISIS attacked.
“There were nine of us. Two of my brothers and I were at my uncle’s house. We were all captured together. Other members of my family were able to escape. ISIS captured my brothers and me. Then we were taken to a distant place [Tal Afar] where we stayed for around one year. My brothers were separated from me. My separation from my brothers really hurt me and I wanted to be with them,” he recounted.
Her brothers were aged seven and ten at the time.
“They took my brothers but I do not know what they did to them,” she noted.
Mariam later found out that her brothers had managed to escape after being separated from her.
“All the girls were taken to a place. I was able to speak with my parents [on the phone] and they told me that my brothers had reunited with them. I tried to escape too but I could not because I was too young [for such an adventure].”
The young Yazidi girl and other abducted women were put on sale.
“We girls were all put in a house [in Raqqa] where men would come to choose one they liked and take her,” she said, adding that they were later put in a prison.
“I remained in prison for two years. After that, they [ISIS officials] said that I should get married because I had reached puberty.”
She had turned ten by then.
“I had concealed from them that I had reached puberty because I knew that they would marry me off,” Mariam said but ISIS had suspected her after she did not perform her prayers some days, which was seen as a sign of puberty because women are not allowed to pray during their periods.
Forced marriage
A family decided to take her in until she reached puberty. Soon they told her that she should get married but she refused, telling them that she would get married only when she becomes an adult. The family insisted on their decision.
Someone asked for her hand, but she was not interested in marriage. His appearance was terrifying, she said. “He was fat, long-haired and long-bearded. I was really terrified after seeing him and I had nightmares about him.”
After realizing that she did not want to get married, the family took her to a place where women like her were sold.
“A good person came. He said that he would adopt me as his daughter and take care of me until I grew up and got married. I stayed with him for two years. Then, their [ISIS] emirs said that I should get married.”
One day, a Syrian young man asked for her hand while she was still ten years old but his mother refused because she did not want her son to marry a kidnapped woman.
Months later, a 24-year-old Palestinian man asked for her hand. They got married although it was technically illegal to marry off a ten-year-old child.
“They told the court that I was 16 years old because they [judges] would not approve the marriage had I said I was ten. They prepared a marriage bond and bought me gold in the market,” said Mariam, revealing that she was threatened by the groom’s family not to reveal her real age.
“I did not want the marriage and I was too young but they would not understand because my Arabic was poor. I didn't even know what marriage was,” recounted the Yazidi woman.
First night of marriage
Mariam and the Palestinian man lived in a house in Raqqa.
“I was taken to a house in which he [groom] and I were staring at one another [at the first night of marriage]. It was a strange feeling. I did not know what was going on. I did not know what marriage was. Evening came and the man knew what he was doing [preparing for sex] but I did not. He asked me to go to bed but this experience was very strange to me. I did not feel good at all,” she mentioned.
“I then realized that he was going to rape me. I knew that I was young but he was an adult, so I would not endure it [sex] with him… He said that he was not going to forcibly sleep with me and that he would do it only when I was ready.”
But Mariam did not trust him. She told him that she wanted to sleep but he said she had to wait a bit. She went to the bathroom, pretending to take a shower for two hours until he nodded off. “I went to another room and slept. The next day, I cried and told him that I was not ready for marriage. He said that it was an order from the emirs. He did not force me [into sex] that day.”
Mariam asked him to take her to a place where some other Kurdish women like her lived. She wanted to rest a bit from marital life although she did not know the women. Her husband allowed her to stay there only for one day and promised to take her back there the following month but he never did.
“He told me that I had to sleep with him. On the third day, he went to a pharmacy and brought a drug which numbs part of the body. He gave me the drug and I [still] cried,” Mariam recounted, saying the rape emotionally hurt her.
He tried to have sex with her every day but she resisted because she could not endure it.
Preteen mother
One year later, she gave birth to a son. Her entry into motherhood changed her life.
Two months later, her husband married an Arab woman and changed his attribute towards Mariam, physically beating her. Two months after the birth of her son, she got pregnant again, this time with a girl.
All the family moved to Baghouz, the last handout of ISIS in Syria.
ISIS-affiliated people flee Baghouz after its liberation by SDF in March 2019. Photo: AFP
In late 2018, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) intensified its attacks against ISIS, especially in Baghouz. Mariam and her ISIS-affiliated family struggled economically in the town where a strong siege had been imposed by the US-backed Kurdish forces.
The family later moved to the nearby al-Suda on the Iraqi border.
Mariam stayed with her Palestinian husband until the SDF declared the territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria. Marian and her son were moved to al-Hol camp in Hasaka, northeast Syria (Rojava). The camp was built to house ISIS-affiliated people, especially women and children. Around 50,000 people are still held in the notorious camp.
Mariam had maintained her contract with her husband while at al-Hol.
She left the camp two months later and moved to the rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria.
While on the way to Idlib, she had her delivery in the car. Four men and a woman were in the car. They wanted to do the delivery in a nearby mosque run by Shiite Kurds but they refused it. Mariam’s daughter was born in the car - thanks to the help of the woman accompanying her.
In Idlib, she lost contact with her husband and soon she watched a video reporting him dead.
Mariam still had contact with her husband’s family back in Palestine. They smuggled her to Turkey where they issued fake passports for her and her children.
Palestine
After staying in Turkey for eight months, She and her children went to Egypt and finally arrived in Palestine’s Nablus.
The Yazidi girl said the family of her husband were good with her and rented her a house in the same city and financially supported her.
Mariam posing for a photo in Palestine. Date: unknown. Photo: submitted
A philanthropist woman has been supporting Mariam and her children after her husband’s family cut their financial support for unknown reasons.
Mariam said converted to Islam when she was in Syria, adding that she still holds the same belief and remembers only little about her previous religion.
Whenever Rudaw asked about her belief, she would check around herself, as if fearing reprisal if she seemed sceptical about her new religion. She was wearing the abaya which covered her body and the niqab to cover her face.
She initially refused to be interviewed by a man, saying this would go against Islamic Sharia which does not allow a woman to speak with people who are not members of their family.
When asked why she was following strict rules of Islam, she said it was not related to her belief but the tradition of Palestinians. Mariam said she could remove her niqab if she returns to Shingal but not now.
Rudaw English asked the office to rescue the missing Yazidis about the number of members of the ethnoreligious group who have ended up in Palestine after being kidnapped by ISIS but it said, “no comment” due to the sensitivity of the subject.
The office said that 550,000 Yazidis used to live in Iraq and Kurdistan Region before 2014, adding that 135,860 of them live in Kurdistan Region’s IDP camps and 189,337 others live in areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad. Some 120,000 have fled the country.
The Free Yezidi Foundation, a leading Yazidi rights organisation, told Rudaw English that “We do not have any statistics on Yezidis taken there.”
Return to Shignal?
Reports about the rescue of Yazidis dominate the media and are widely celebrated. The Kurdistan Region Presidency’s efforts continue to rescue
Asked if she is willing to return to Shingal or Kurdistan Region, Mariam said she definitely does but now.
“I want to return but not until I make sure my children are safe and secure,” she said without elaborating.
Yazidi elders reportedly prevented children of ISIS fighters from joining their Yazidi mothers who wanted to reunite with the community. The children were seen as outcast. This could be a motive behind Mariam’s decision to remain in Palestine.
It is not clear if Yazidis will accept her back if she remains as a Muslim.
She said sorrowfully that really misses her mother.
“I miss my mother the most. When I see other girls spending time with their mothers my feelings get hurt. There is no one I can call ‘Mommy’” she anguished.
She often speaks with her family, except for her brothers, who currently live in the Kurdistan Region. Her family has asked her to return to Iraq.
She has five brothers and three sisters.
She has dedicated her life to raising her children and is going to school in Nablus with the hope of building a different future for her small family.
Mariam had many dreams when she was a kid back in Shingal but after experiencing war she wants to become a doctor although it seems to be a long shot.
“I have seen many people get injured. I want to become a doctor and cure the injured.”
Nasir Ali from Duhok contributed to this article.[1]