by Susan Kuklin
Again, they asked the men to swear that we were their family, their wives. They put a man in a blanket and started shooting at the blanket. They wanted us to think that they had killed that man so that we would be frightened. Later I learned that they had not killed him.
I worried that ISIS would kill my cousin Khairy. I felt guilty because it would be my fault if they killed him. He lied about us being a married couple to save me, and now he himself was in danger.
ISIS militants loaded all the women into a bus and took us to a courthouse. I could see my brothers crying as they took us away. My youngest brother was shouting to me not to do anything to myself. I never saw Khairy again. He is among the missing.
We met another Yazidi woman at the courthouse. She had already been married to an ISIS militant, but he had been killed. She said, “I know what they will do to you, because this is my second time here. They will sell you.”
After they locked us in a room, we tried to kill ourselves by pulling our scarves around our necks. Another woman stopped us. She said, “Killing is not a solution. After you kill yourself, they will throw your bodies to the animals. You will still be humiliated. Dying won’t help you here.”
A girl who knew Arabic asked the ISIS militant what they will do to us. One of them replied, “We are waiting for Abu Ali, Haji Mehdi, and the judge to decide.” Abu Ali is one of the ISIS militants that was a prince of ISIS. He was older and had a long beard. He dressed in black. Haji Mehdi was also an ISIS militant. He was younger, thin, had a beard, and long hair. The judge was a prince of ISIS too, but I do not know anything about him.
They arrived with a camera and took our pictures. Haji Mehdi asked us questions: “How old are you? Where are you from?” They asked about our fathers and mothers. We were all careful not to answer that we were from a town that resisted ISIS, because we expected that they would kill us. Everybody said they were from Sinjar City. I did too.
That night, they brought us bread and eggs. I did not eat anything.
The next day, they separated us again. They brought in a lady, a Muslim doctor. She told Haji Mehdi that she could tell who is married and who is single just by looking at us. I recognized her voice. I knew her! She was a doctor in Sinjar. Many times, before ISIS came, we visited her clinic. Her name is Nawal. NAWAL!
Nawal said that we were lying, that only two of us were married and the rest were virgins. The judge selected four girls and gave each of them to an ISIS fighter.
All this time, I was wearing a long robe called a dishdasha in Arabic. The girl who spoke Arabic got black clothes for us. She told us to put on the clothes and be ready. Haji Mehdi, Abu Ali, and the judge were going to distribute us to ISIS fighters and other people who lived in the Islamic State. I washed my hands, but I didn’t wash my face. I became confused, dizzy, because I hadn’t had food for three days. I was so frightened, I passed out.
When I became conscious, I could not walk. I thought, this is my opportunity to get away from them. I pretended that I could not talk. The only sound I made was to cry.
My friends put a blanket on me. The girl who spoke Arabic called to the guard, “Why do you punish us? Even when someone gets sick, you don’t want to help them. She passed out and cannot move and cannot talk. She needs to go to a doctor.”
“We don’t have permission to call a doctor,” the fighter said. “We must wait for Abu Ali and Haji Mehdi to come back.” After a while, they sent Nawal, the doctor who said that we were virgins, to the hospital with me.
In the hospital, they wanted to prove that I was lying, so they stuck needles in my feet to see if I would move. I kept silent, with no movement. No talking. No talking at all. Then the doctor told the militants that I probably had a stroke. They gave me an IV infusion, some syrup, and pills. Then they took me back to the prison. They told the girl who spoke Arabic to give me the medications.
The girls told me to eat and drink and that they would not tell anyone, but I did not trust anyone at this point, so I remained pretending to be paralyzed.
In the morning, the militants came in and told us that an imam, a religious man, was coming. All the girls started crying.
The imam entered and asked if I had talked or eaten. He brought a bag filled with black burkas for us to wear. We were told to go shower and dress in the black clothes. Afterwards, one girl, Berevan, was sold off to one of the militants who was already married. Then they sold Alia. She hugged all of us before she left. She was crying and said that this was the end of all of us. Then they sold my friend Maha, who later managed to escape and is now in Germany. They then took another girl. That day they sold off four of the girls. The next day, the militants came for a fifth girl. The other girls used to joke with her because she was very skinny. They’d tell her that she is lucky because they would not want to take her. She was taken away to be seen by a militant, but he did not want to marry her, so she came back.
Then they came for me.
Three of the militants covered me in black fabric, picked me up, and took me to the room where the holy man was selling us. The holy man uncovered my face and said that I looked okay. Haji Mehdi had supposedly taken me for himself, but because I did not talk or walk, he sold me to an elderly militant, Abu Anas from Baaj.
Abu means “father” in Arabic. Abu Anas is not his real name. Shireen says that none of the ISIS militants used real names.
Abu Anas was from one of the Arabic tribes who live in Baaj, west of Mosul. He bought me and took me to his house. He was already married and had a big family. His wife met me with five of their children. She kissed me and said I should eat some food. I still did not walk or talk. Abu Anas was rich, so he took me to a separate house from his wife and children. There were a lot of Yazidi girls there.
That night he came to the room. I was terrified. He removed the blanket that covered me. I insisted on not moving. Abu Anas said I was lying, and he bit my feet to test me. “Tomorrow I will marry you,” he said. He tried to rape me, but I pretended that I was sick. I did not move at all.
The next night, he came in the room again and told me he was going to marry me. I started crying but did not make a move. He brought two other militants into the room. This was the most difficult time for me because I was terrified at the thought that they were going to gang-rape me. But instead, they brought the Quran to my face and laughed and made fun of me and my religion. One of them prayed over some water and placed his hand on my head, saying a prayer that I talk.
Abu Anas told me that even if I did not talk or walk, he was still going to marry me. Then all three fell asleep. I did not sleep that night at all. I stared at them the whole night. When they woke up, they ate breakfast. The two other militants left, and Abu Anas started to molest me. He grabbed my hands and stepped on my feet. It was so painful. I still did not move, so he left.
For three days, Abu Anas tried to rape me. I resisted by pretending I was sick and unconscious. Finally, he decided to get rid of me. He sold me to Abu Ali for one hundred dollars.
Abu Ali took me back to Mosul, back to the jail where the girls were originally waiting to be sold. Only two girls were left, the skinny one and another who had a head injury and was not mentally stable. The second girl was very pretty and spoke Arabic well. Apparently I fainted again, because when I woke up, I found myself in a hospital in Mosul. The pretty girl was with me.
Because Abu Ali had bought me, he stayed in the hospital. After four days, they inserted a urine tube inside me. That was very painful. Abu Ali threatened to have me gang-raped if I didn’t move. I prayed to God that I would die before Abu Ali touched me.
Abu Ali took me back to the prison and put me in a room with a pretty Christian woman. He said, “This Christian woman is crazy.” She had suffered so much she had lost her mind. I wouldn’t talk with her because she might be an informer. They brought us food that I refused to eat. I gave my food to the Christian woman. After she ate some, she screamed and shouted with a high, high voice while putting the rest of the f
ood in her hair. Sometimes she would come sit by me and hold my hand and cry. Then she would take off all of her clothes and start screaming. She frightened me when she did this. I stayed in that jail for about a week.
Abu Ali sold me to another militant for one dollar. His name was Abu Adel. Abu Adel had a long blond beard and curly hair. He said that he was a doctor living in Syria and that he would fix me himself. Three militants came and dragged me with a blanket to his car. He stopped in front of another prison that kept Yazidi girls and women and picked up two more girls. He told them to speak to me in our language so that I would respond. I did not speak.
When we reached Syria, I was very nauseous and passed out again. Abu Adel drove me to a hospital. They said that I had an infection from the bladder bag they had inserted into me. Two nurses dressed in burkas made fun of me because I smelled bad. They gave me an IV and I was released.
Abu Adel drove us to a place where they sold Yazidi girls. I saw a girl sold to a man who spoke a Kurdish language. He said that he loved his wife, but she only gave him one child. He wanted more children. Then the Kurdish man pointed to me. Abu Adel said, “This one is mine. I bought her in Iraq.”
The two militants and the two Yazidi girls spent the night together. In the morning, we were given tea and yogurt for breakfast. I did not eat.
Abu Adel was mean. He brought some other people to the house who had something green in color, like oily medicine. They said that this stuff would make me talk. They forced the Yazidi women to restrain me. They cried as they grabbed my hands and my legs. Horrible green oily liquid was poured in my mouth. I tried not to swallow it. I fought back as much as I could. I knew I was about to die. Despite what they did, I didn’t speak. Now, sometimes, I still feel that liquid in my mouth. It’s hard to eat oily foods. When I think about that time, I feel the taste in my mouth. I feel that taste now, just thinking about it. I taste it.
After that, they brought in an imam. He read the Quran to me. He brought some water and tried to make me drink this water. I didn’t take it. I made no movement. No talk. He threw the water in my face.
Abu Adel and one of the other militants were cousins. They were originally from Turkey, and the cousin’s mother was angry at him for joining ISIS. His plan was to marry a Yazidi woman, buy a lot of gold, and return to Turkey. The cousin asked Abu Adel why I didn’t talk. “I will make her talk,” he said.
The militants dressed me in a burka and took me to a hospital. They removed my head scarf and started laughing. Three workers put me in a wheelchair and pushed me inside. Abu Adel was already there, dressed in a white gown because he was a doctor. He gave me an IV and medicine.
Up to this point they called me Hamdya, because they didn’t know my real name. But once my arm was exposed, they saw the tattoo that my fake-husband-real-cousin had scratched on my arm. Abu Adel asked the other Yazidi woman, “Why does she have a tattoo? Is it religious or something? If it’s religious, I’m going to have it taken off.” They kept on calling me Hamdya because that was an Arabic name and Shireen was a Yazidi name.
The cousin took the Yazidi girl away and I was alone. After a while, Abu Adel returned and said that I looked better. He played Quran verses on his phone that was placed by my head.
That night, they brought in another Yazidi girl to try to get me to speak. She was from Kocho and her name was Noura. She had been sold into marriage to an ISIS doctor who treated wounded ISIS fighters. This doctor was a specialist who had examined my reflex to pain earlier by putting a needle in my foot. Noura told me to cooperate with them or else I would be harmed. When I did not speak, she returned to the others after promising me that she would see me again. By now I was very weak and dizzy. I was having delusions and could not feel anything. I watched the door to myself lock.
The next morning, Abu Adel left cake in my room to see if I would eat it. When I did not, he became very angry with me. He told me to get ready because he was going to marry me and take me.
A third doctor, a woman, came into the room. She was very scary. She wore sunglasses, had many weapons around her body, and spoke loudly in English. After she examined me, she said that I was suffering from panic attack, that there was no benefit trying to make me talk, and that we needed to go to another hospital. Whenever doctors said that I had a heart attack or a panic attack, it made me happy because I was looking for any chance to get rid of them.
At the new hospital, they put me in a big machine, like a CT scan or an MRI. When I saw that machine, I was so afraid. The report from the test was that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was lying. The head doctor did not speak Arabic, only English. Later, this English-speaking doctor checked my vital signs and said that I had had a stroke. Again, that made me happy.
The next morning, Abu Adel was so angry with me that he stood on my feet. The English-speaking doctor came as well and checked my joints to see if I could move my body. When I did not move, he pushed me off the bed and I fell to the ground. Two nurses picked me up and put me back on the bed.
The English-speaking woman doctor with weapons around her body and another doctor arrived with a bunch of wires that they placed all over my body — on my ears, my toes, feet, stomach, and back. I thought it was to test my heart, or maybe my virginity. I was wrong. It was to give me electric-shock treatment. They told me that this technique is used for people who suffered from schizophrenia or other mental problems. They said that they used this on people who did not respond to medications. They practically electrocuted me.
While this was happening, the doctors and nurses above me were laughing. I remembered a time when my family and I were in our home in Sinjar. I remembered watching a Turkish show on TV where they electrocuted a guy. We were crying for this guy. I never, ever, thought something this terrible could happen to me. But it was happening to me. Even today, when I walk, I feel pain in my leg and foot from the electricity.
After they shocked me, I was totally numb. I didn’t know what was going on around me. I couldn’t open my eyes. After seven days with only an IV, I could open my eyes, but I couldn’t move. The two Yazidi girls came to my room and begged me to talk. They swore by the Quran that if I talked, I would be taken to my family. I knew that they were forced to say this. I did not talk.
Three other ISIS fighters came, and I was very afraid because I knew that they were going to torture me again. They covered me with the blanket and pulled me out into the garden. They put another blanket on my face and my head. Abu Adel said, “Now we are going to make her speak.” They pointed a pistol at my head and said that they will kill me if I don’t speak. The two Yazidi women were there, screaming and begging them not to kill me. While laughing, they fired two shots close my head. Even now I feel the sound of two shots in my ear. At that point, I did not care anymore. I preferred to die. Death was better than this miserable situation, so I was not afraid. Kill me or not kill me, I didn’t talk.
They carried me back to my room and put me on the bed. One of them was laughing at me so hard he fell on the ground. I think they didn’t kill me because we women are a good business for ISIS.
Abu Adel took me back to the same prison in Mosul where the Christian lady was being held. She was still there, eating a little rice and pouring the rest on her head. The Christian lady had urinated all over the cell, and the smell was so awful I could not breathe. Also, my blanket was filthy because I had been covering myself under it for months, even when I had my period. I could not wash the blanket.
Abu Adel sold me to another doctor, Abu Omar, for two dollars. The next day, Abu Omar took me to a nearby hospital, where I was given an IV line and some IV fluids. The liquid solutions are what probably kept me from starving to death. I stayed in the hospital for two days before I was taken to Abu Omer’s house, which was about fourteen minutes from the hospital.
Abu Omer had three daughters and one son. The youngest daughter, Aysha, would pull my hair. His son-in-law had been hit during an airplane raid and was on crutches. The son-in
-law asked if I had relatives in Kurdistan. He promised to call them if I gave him their numbers. He even said that if I talked, he would take me to Kurdistan. I did not give him my relatives’ numbers. I only stared at him, and sometimes tears would fall from my eyes. I could control my movement, but I could not control my tears.
In Abu Omar’s house, I slept on the floor in a locked room. It was so cold, my teeth chattered. Because I didn’t want them to hear the noise, I forced myself to stop shivering. At this point, I had not eaten real food in months and could barely open my eyes.
After three days, Abu Omar, his wife, and his daughter took me back to the hospital. I was put into a room and they locked the door. Not one person took pity on me. Abu Omer claimed that he would be nice to me if I spoke. I didn’t respond to him. I heard some doctors say that they were going to operate on me. I reached out with my hands, begging them not to do this. The doctors, who were speaking in English, took me to the operating room and put two IV lines in me. Abu Omar’s wife tried to take from my finger the ring my grandmother had given me, but I resisted her. With my hand, I told her NO, NO. That ring was the only proof I had that I was married. Another doctor, a man with a long beard, came. He was ISIS too. I think he was an anesthesiologist, because he had two syringes of medication. As soon as he pushed a drug through an IV line, I went to sleep.
When I woke up from the anesthesia, I saw Abu Omar’s wife asleep beside me. I was restrained to the wall. There was a bandage on my stomach area and I was in so much pain. I threw up on my hospital gown and was very dizzy. Then I passed out. (To this day, I don’t know why they did that. They did not take my organs.) Another lady was in the bed next to mine, but she had passed away. When I saw her dead body, I passed out again. The next time I woke up, Abu Omar and two nurses were looking down at me. Two IV bags were connected to me, one was filled with urine and the other was filled with blood.