The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

by Farida Khalaf

  “It’s hopeless. As soon as it gets dark we’ve got to keep going,” I said.

  Evin shook her head, pointing at little Besma, whose whole body was shaking.

  “I’m cold,” the young girl complained. But her head felt burning hot when I touched it with my hand.

  “She’s got a temperature,” I said.

  “Yes, she desperately needs something to drink. Dehydrated and overheated, there’s no way she’ll be able to walk any further tonight.”

  “What are we going to do, then?” There was no question of abandoning our friend; either we made it together or we didn’t make it at all.

  “We’ve got to try to get help,” Evin said.

  “Where?”

  “Maybe from that house.”

  I didn’t much like the idea. “Who knows what sort of people live there,” I protested.

  “But we don’t have any other choice! Besma’s too weak to walk. And we can’t carry her the whole way either; we don’t have the strength.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, biting my lip. “We’ll ask at the house. But not right away. Let’s take a good look first before we do anything.” I was determined to avoid falling blindly into a trap. If a bunch of ISIS people lived there we’d recognize them by their vehicles, weapons, and clothes. Then we’d have to seek help elsewhere.

  “That’s what we’ll do,” Evin said. “I reckon we’ll have the best view of the property from the roof.”

  We climbed upstairs together and hid behind one of the windows. At first glance the building looked like a perfectly normal house; we couldn’t see anything unusual. Voices and cries kept drifting over to us. But we couldn’t see any of the occupants.

  After a while a white Kia entered the drive and a man stepped out. He was fairly tubby, with short hair and a short beard, and was wearing civilian clothing. He didn’t look like a soldier. Perhaps he was the father of the family living in the house. And then a woman appeared at the door with two children. She wasn’t veiled ISIS-style either, but just wearing a dress and headscarf. We breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s a family,” Evin said. “Perfectly normal people.”

  “True, but don’t forget they’re living in the middle of ISIS-held territory,” I pointed out. “They must have come to some sort of arrangement with them, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to stay here. After all, we weren’t able to stay when the ISIS men came, were we?”

  “You could be right,” she said pensively. “But maybe as far as ISIS is concerned they’re of the right faith and that’s why they’re being left in peace.”

  “We don’t know what these people think about Yazidis. They might regard us as devil worshippers.” As I listened to myself speak I realized how mistrustful I’d become of all Muslims, of the world in general. I could hardly believe that there were decent people left at all.

  “Let’s watch the house a little longer,” I begged Evin. Having gotten this far I really didn’t wish to take any more risks.

  “All right, but remember that Besma, and the rest of us, urgently need water.”

  We spent all day on the lookout. I noted that a total of seven people lived in the house: the father, mother, and their five children—three boys and two girls. One of the sons was still very small, the others were of school age. One of the daughters was roughly my age, so almost an adult. None of them wore clothes that were militantly Islamic, which I found somewhat reassuring. Over the course of the day I watched them go about their routines: cooking, eating, doing the washing, driving off in the car and coming back, doing homework. I envied them; how wonderful it must be to be able to lead a totally normal life.

  When the sun set I was still unsure whether we ought to reveal ourselves. It was and remained a risk I really didn’t want to take. Perhaps we might make it to Hasakah on foot after all. But Besma’s condition had by now grown even worse. She was glowing like a stove and talking nonsense in her feverish delirium. The other girls were very feeble too, and shivering with cold. So Evin urged me to try it. She glanced at our little friend. “If we don’t get her water and dry clothes immediately she’s not going to make it. We’re sinning against her!”

  “Okay. Let’s give it a try,” I agreed, gritting my teeth.

  At first we considered sending a delegation to ask for help, but then agreed that we were all going to risk it together. The moon had just risen above the horizon, so we said a short prayer before leaving our hiding place. Standing in a row, we turned to face the heavenly body and whispered the formulas that our fathers and grandfathers had taught us. “Lord, have mercy upon us,” I begged Melek Taus and the group of angels who decided on our destiny at the autumn gathering. “Take pity on us. We have suffered enough.”

  “Amen,” the girls muttered. “May God protect the faith. God is our witness: we have never betrayed our faith.”

  Then we tied our face veils behind our heads and adjusted our abayas. Once more covered from head to toe in our still damp black robes, we stepped out into the road. Evin and Sila supported Besma, as she couldn’t walk unassisted. It wasn’t just me who felt uneasy as we slowly approached the house that stood there dark and silent in the dusk. The only light came from behind the drawn curtains in the windows. Evin looked at me and I nodded. Pluckily, she knocked at the door.

  I couldn’t help trembling when I heard footsteps in the hallway: men’s footsteps. The man of the house opened the door to us. Behind him stood his eldest son, a teenager. They stared at us as if we’d come down from the moon; we must have looked like extraterrestrials. All six of us fell to our knees at the same time, even Besma in her fever.

  “Sir,” I addressed the man. “We’re in desperate circumstances and we need your help. Our lives are in your hands.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, perplexed.

  I’d already thought that it would be pointless to lie to him. It was too obvious who we were and where we’d come from. We had to tell him the truth. “We were held captive and ran away,” I said.

  I saw fear in the man’s face, which wasn’t surprising, as the situation was dangerous for him too. “What’s it got to do with me?” he asked gruffly. He wanted to be rid of us as soon as he could.

  “We urgently need your help,” I repeated. “Water, food . . .”

  “That’s impossible!” he said. “I ought to go right now and inform the military leadership that you’re here.”

  Evin looked him in the eye. “If you’re a good man and believe in God, then help us!” she implored him. “If not, hand us over to ISIS.”

  The man mulled this over; he was clearly struggling with our request. “Things aren’t that simple. The ISIS soldiers are always passing by this way, demanding food and drink,” he said. “What if they saw you?” Father and son exchanged uncertain glances.

  “Maybe we’ll get a reward from their families if we help them,” the son whispered. This argument seemed to be conclusive.

  “All right, maybe you can come in for a bit,” said the father, who now introduced himself as Abu Yousef. “Then we’ll have to think about it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but hesitated before stepping over his threshold. The man had a financial interest in us. Could we really trust him? It surely wasn’t advisable to wait any longer outside his door, where the whole world could see us. On the other hand, by entering his house we were delivering ourselves into his hands. If his intentions were malicious he could imprison us again, hand us over or sell us on. We went in nevertheless.

  In the hallway the aroma of freshly cooked rice tickled my nostrils. What a wonderful, familiar smell, the smell of home. “What’s going on?” Abu Yousef’s wife called from the kitchen and put her head around the door. She was more than surprised to see six girls veiled in black step into her hallway. After her husband had given her the lowdown on us, she looked concerned.

  “You poor girls,” she said impulsively when we removed our veils and she saw our young faces. “You’re half frozen; your lips have turned bl
ue. No wonder, given the weather out there . . .” She stopped and turned to her husband. “Isn’t it far too dangerous to put them up here?”

  “Yes, we have to be careful,” he acknowledged. “The best thing would be to take them into the back room and pull down the blinds so no one can see them from outside . . .” His wife nodded and showed us the way.

  “We’ve got the phone number of a man who can pick us up,” I said.

  “That’s good.” Abu Yousef asked me to give him the number I knew by heart. I dictated it to him, as well as that of Evin’s uncle in Germany.

  Then I followed the others into one of the children’s rooms, where the wife had already pulled down the roller blinds. For a split second I was assailed by the recollection of the room in the Syrian slave dealer, Abu Arram’s, house, where the roller blinds had been down permanently. But I tried not to panic. It was different here, I told myself. The blinds had been closed for our protection.

  Once the woman of the house had gotten over her initial shock, she slipped into the role of hostess. She brought us bandages and a bowl for us to wash our bloody feet after the long march. She put our abayas in the washing machine and brought us new clothes that belonged to herself and her eldest daughter. “My goodness, you’re brave girls,” she acknowledged. “You did very well to run away from there!”

  I smiled with pride and embarrassment. It was the first time I’d been praised rather than beaten for my rebellious behavior.

  “Now you just rest here with us.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said as I helped her put cold compresses on Besma to bring down her temperature. Evin gave the girl water and Sila washed her damaged feet. She was in a very bad state and shivering continually. We swaddled her in thick woolen blankets.

  “I bet you’re starving,” our hostess said. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said politely, although even the thought of food made my stomach rumble.

  “Yes it is,” she insisted. “You are our guests.”

  Now I was certain that fortune was on our side. We’d found shelter with decent people. I wanted to cry out of sheer relief. “Thank you, dear woman,” I said, kissing her hand.

  Soon afterward we washed, were in clean clothes, and having dinner around a large tablecloth on the floor. I finally felt human again—and felt too that I was being treated like one. Our hostess had employed all her culinary skills for us. We were given rice with chicken, salad, hummus, and falafels, as well as Sprite and Coca-Cola. Our mouths were watering at the sight and smell of all these delicacies we’d been without for so long. All the family members were now behaving as if we were state guests.

  “I’ve spoken to your uncle Khalil and Mustafa Hamu,” Abu Yousef said. “They will do all they can to organize your rescue.”

  “Thank you,” I said with tears in my eyes. “We’ll never forget you for this. You are a good man, Abu Yousef.”

  But he made a dismissive gesture, as if his hospitality were a matter of course—even though he’d wanted to send us away at first. Was he perhaps asking for money from Evin’s uncle for sheltering us rather than handing us over to ISIS? Later I found out that this was precisely what had happened. They were still haggling over the price he was demanding for our protection.

  “Here you are safe, at any rate,” he said grandiosely. “If need be I will defend you against ISIS with my own hands. Now you are free people once more.”

  We thanked him many times as we ate everything we could get our hands on. Although we were ashamed at helping ourselves in such a way, I have to admit that no meal had ever tasted as good as this one: our first dinner in freedom.

  WE STAYED AT the house for a few days, spending most of our time in the back room. I was used to sharing a small room with my friends, of course, but this time it felt very different, for we were free people. Our door wasn’t locked!

  Abu Yousef’s children would come to see us occasionally. They were extremely excited by our sudden appearance in their house and wanted us to tell them the story of our escape over and over again, drilling us with questions. “But weren’t you afraid of going away on your own at night? What would you have done if you hadn’t found our house?”

  I was very willing to tell them everything. They were wide-eyed, but ultimately they couldn’t begin to imagine what we’d been through. My stories were like an action film for them. Sometimes they asked questions we couldn’t answer so easily, like: “Where are your parents? Aren’t they missing you?” Then we’d become very pensive and quiet. All of us were weighed down by worries about our parents and siblings. We’d heard in the meantime that our village was still occupied by ISIS, but we didn’t know how our relatives were, or whether they were even still alive.

  Although Besma’s recovery was very slow, it was steady. We managed to lower her temperature with the cold compresses and soon her eyes were again full of life, brightening her pretty, pale face. Indeed, they looked almost happy when she realized that we were over the worst. “Have we really done it, Farida?” she asked me. “Really? Are you sure that absolutely nothing can go wrong now?”

  “Ninety-eight percent sure,” I said. “The rest is a breeze for brave girls like you and me. Mustafa Hamu is going to send a driver to pick us up from here.”

  “What then?”

  “Then we’ll go to Hasakah, and from there back into Iraq.”

  “Back to our families?”

  “Yes, to our families.”

  She sighed. “It’s going to be so lovely to see my mom again,” she said. “Are you dreaming about that too?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. To hug my mother again was my greatest desire. And of course my father, my brothers, and my dear cousin Nura. But where were they? A queasy feeling crept up on me when I recalled our last few moments together. Since then I’d had absolutely no news about my family. Were they still alive? The shots we’d heard from inside the school building echoed in my head, and an ice-cold shiver ran down my spine. No, I didn’t want to think like that. I kept hoping that, just like me, my dear parents and brothers had found some way to escape the thugs.

  But my fear for them grew. I was particularly concerned by the fact that neither Abu Yousef nor Evin’s uncle Khalil could establish any contact with them. From the scraps of conversation I picked up when our host was on the phone, I knew that both of the men were trying as best they could to find our families. Abu Yousef, because he probably wanted a suitable reward for his hospitality; and Evin’s uncle because he couldn’t afford Abu Yousef’s and Mustafa Hamu’s services on his own.

  Finally, on the third day, Abu Yousef came to our door in the morning and said we should get ready to leave. We immediately put on our own old clothes and black robes.

  Around midday a pickup arrived at the house. Our host spoke with the driver that Mustafa Hamu had sent. We spent ages waiting in the back room.

  But then everything happened quickly. Abu Yousef came and said he’d sorted everything out. He accompanied us to the front door. The driver was already back in his cab and maneuvered the vehicle a little closer to the front door. “Have a safe journey,” our host said as we departed. “I hope you’re all reunited with your families!”

  “Thank you, Abu Yousef. All the best for you and your family too,” we replied. Then we hurried over to the pickup and climbed onto the cargo bed, which was full of rolls of cloth, crates, and plastic tarpaulins we could hide under.

  I was bursting with excitement as we set off. Our destination, the Kurdish city of Hasakah, where Mustafa Hamu lived, was around two hundred kilometers to the north. Hopefully everything would be fine.

  Each time the vehicle slowed down I held my breath. I prayed to Melek Taus that we wouldn’t be stopped by a roadside check, especially not one where they inspected the cargo area. If the self-appointed holy warriors found us there they’d take us captive again immediately. Which would put our ordeal back to square one.

  For a long time our
journey was quiet. As tarpaulins hid us I couldn’t see where we were going. But I think that the driver had chosen certain farm tracks to avoid the controls. I was slightly amazed that it was all going so smoothly, for in my imagination ISIS had installed checkpoints everywhere throughout the territory it controlled. But that was clearly not the case.

  Then, however, the pickup suddenly came to a stop and I could hear the driver negotiating with a man. I didn’t understand what the two of them were saying. Moments full of anxiety passed, in which we didn’t know what would happen. When the vehicle started moving again I took hold of Evin’s sweaty hand. We breathed a sigh of relief. Had the driver given the man money to stop any further bother? That seemed the most likely explanation. Presumably the bribe he had to pay was included in our fare.

  After about a three or four hours’ drive, which felt unbelievably long to me and the other girls, we reached the suburbs of Hasakah, a city on the edge of the Kurdish area, and not far from the Iraqi border. Like Sinjar, it had been overrun by jihadis in August and was still under ISIS control, although not all parts of the city. Mustafa Hamu’s house was in an area that ISIS hadn’t conquered.

  I was most concerned about this last part of the drive, for I assumed that ISIS had installed blockades on the boundaries of the territory they had command over, to control the coming and going of all vehicles. Would the self-styled holy warriors let us pass? As I’d anticipated, we stopped at one of these checkpoints. Our driver got out and slammed the door shut. He greeted the guards checking him. He clearly knew them because he called them by name. My heart was in my mouth. Was he one of them? Would he hand us over or sell us? After a short while the man got back in and we were on our way again. Ten minutes later we stopped outside the house where Mustafa Hamu lived with his family. Our rescuer pulled back the plastic tarpaulin.

  “Welcome, dear girls,” he greeted us. The Yazidi people smuggler had a mustache and wore the traditional white clothes with a jacket and an Arabic scarf on his head with a headband. “My warmest congratulations! You made it!”