Crucifixions, beheadings and life in Isil-held Syria as revealed by refugees fleeing the terror to Shona Murray in Beirut
Shona Murray
'WE saw the slaughter with our bare eyes. We saw them beheading men in front of our eyes in the centre of our town.
"When we were escaping, there were heads on spikes on each route outside the city, just to remind us all of what can happen," says 39-year-old Umma Abed from Deir ez-Zor in Isil-held Syria.
Umma Abed and her four daughters and two sons fled Isil's control and managed to get to Lebanon late last year.
"They're not Syrians - I heard English accents; Tunisians. When they came first, they searched our house, and said 'do you have any infidels here?'
"I said no, we are just with God; we just want to live, and eat and save my children.
"My daughter fainted, she was so frightened; my son, Abed was crying".
The family are farmers, and owned five hectares of wheat - much of which they were eventually forced to hand over to the local Isil militants.
Isil captured the town of Deir ez-Zor late last July, during a series of lightning advances in Iraq and Syria. Its headquarters in Syria is in the city of Raqqa, next to Deir ez-Zor.
"We were working in the land; one day a missile landed 20 feet from us, and I knew Daesh [local name for Isis] was coming."
When they came, "there was no mercy", she says.
"I have daughters, and if one of them went outside without their face covered, their father would be flogged 80 times.
"This is how they used to make us wear our niqab," Umma Abed demonstrates with her headscarf, fully covering her face.
"The Isil female police would arrest us if we went outside without our husband or other men; they would have us flogged. If my son was sick, I couldn't take him to the hospital unless there was a man.
"One day I was with my son and husband in the town, and they had just crucified a local man, and my son asked me, 'what is happening, why are they doing this', and I kept telling him that it was a statue, and not real. He said 'no, it looks like a real man'.
"He didn't sleep for four nights afterwards, he was so scared. That man's crucifix was held very high, so that everybody could see. My other son wanted to study law, but they said nobody can study law anymore, Daesh says we all have to go back to the laws of when Mohammad was alive.
"My daughter used to study in a regime - Syrian - controlled school, she was in grade nine, but the female Isil police officers said the school was for infidels, and it was 'anti-Islam' for my daughters to be educated."
As well as the savagery meted out by Isil foreigners to her neighbours and family, Umma Abed explains that hunger also drove them to leave.
They now live in a one-room tent, on a campsite at the foothill of the mountains that separates Syria from Lebanon - just 40km away is Damascus. It is through this route her and her family took three days to find shelter.
"We are hungry again, but not as much as before. We need to pay rent in this tent; bread and water are expensive."
NGOs like World Vision and the UN develop sanitation methods for the thousands of refugees that arrive with nowhere to live. They also provide basic food items and clothes.
"It is good, but not enough. We need more food, and my children get sick from the cold and the hygiene in the camp.
Her five-year-old son Abed is in school in the Child Friendly Space (CFS), a designated area set up in various camps by World Vision, which allows children to get basic education while they remain as refugees.
"We just want to go back to our lands, and get rid of Daesh - they are not even Syrian; I don't think Syrians would do this to their own people"
Another alarming consequence of the Syrian war and the refugee crisis is the major rise in the number of child brides whose families can no longer support them, and in cases where a girl is married before the family flee, it is for fear that she will be kidnapped and forced to marry a 'foreign jihadi'. A UNICEF report from 2014 says that child marriages for Syrian refugees have doubled in the past year, with 32pc of recorded marriages occurring in cases where the girl was under 18, many of whom marrying men more than 10 years their senior.
Fifteen-year-old Maryam married her cousin nearly a year ago. The arrangement was made by both their families, before coming to the temporary refugee camps on the Syria/Lebanon border.
Read more: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/i-heard-english-accents-they-asked-for-infidels-31049294.html
Shona Murray
'WE saw the slaughter with our bare eyes. We saw them beheading men in front of our eyes in the centre of our town.
"When we were escaping, there were heads on spikes on each route outside the city, just to remind us all of what can happen," says 39-year-old Umma Abed from Deir ez-Zor in Isil-held Syria.
Umma Abed and her four daughters and two sons fled Isil's control and managed to get to Lebanon late last year.
"They're not Syrians - I heard English accents; Tunisians. When they came first, they searched our house, and said 'do you have any infidels here?'
"I said no, we are just with God; we just want to live, and eat and save my children.
"My daughter fainted, she was so frightened; my son, Abed was crying".
The family are farmers, and owned five hectares of wheat - much of which they were eventually forced to hand over to the local Isil militants.
Isil captured the town of Deir ez-Zor late last July, during a series of lightning advances in Iraq and Syria. Its headquarters in Syria is in the city of Raqqa, next to Deir ez-Zor.
"We were working in the land; one day a missile landed 20 feet from us, and I knew Daesh [local name for Isis] was coming."
When they came, "there was no mercy", she says.
"I have daughters, and if one of them went outside without their face covered, their father would be flogged 80 times.
"This is how they used to make us wear our niqab," Umma Abed demonstrates with her headscarf, fully covering her face.
"The Isil female police would arrest us if we went outside without our husband or other men; they would have us flogged. If my son was sick, I couldn't take him to the hospital unless there was a man.
"One day I was with my son and husband in the town, and they had just crucified a local man, and my son asked me, 'what is happening, why are they doing this', and I kept telling him that it was a statue, and not real. He said 'no, it looks like a real man'.
"He didn't sleep for four nights afterwards, he was so scared. That man's crucifix was held very high, so that everybody could see. My other son wanted to study law, but they said nobody can study law anymore, Daesh says we all have to go back to the laws of when Mohammad was alive.
"My daughter used to study in a regime - Syrian - controlled school, she was in grade nine, but the female Isil police officers said the school was for infidels, and it was 'anti-Islam' for my daughters to be educated."
As well as the savagery meted out by Isil foreigners to her neighbours and family, Umma Abed explains that hunger also drove them to leave.
They now live in a one-room tent, on a campsite at the foothill of the mountains that separates Syria from Lebanon - just 40km away is Damascus. It is through this route her and her family took three days to find shelter.
"We are hungry again, but not as much as before. We need to pay rent in this tent; bread and water are expensive."
NGOs like World Vision and the UN develop sanitation methods for the thousands of refugees that arrive with nowhere to live. They also provide basic food items and clothes.
"It is good, but not enough. We need more food, and my children get sick from the cold and the hygiene in the camp.
Her five-year-old son Abed is in school in the Child Friendly Space (CFS), a designated area set up in various camps by World Vision, which allows children to get basic education while they remain as refugees.
"We just want to go back to our lands, and get rid of Daesh - they are not even Syrian; I don't think Syrians would do this to their own people"
Another alarming consequence of the Syrian war and the refugee crisis is the major rise in the number of child brides whose families can no longer support them, and in cases where a girl is married before the family flee, it is for fear that she will be kidnapped and forced to marry a 'foreign jihadi'. A UNICEF report from 2014 says that child marriages for Syrian refugees have doubled in the past year, with 32pc of recorded marriages occurring in cases where the girl was under 18, many of whom marrying men more than 10 years their senior.
Fifteen-year-old Maryam married her cousin nearly a year ago. The arrangement was made by both their families, before coming to the temporary refugee camps on the Syria/Lebanon border.
Read more: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/i-heard-english-accents-they-asked-for-infidels-31049294.html
No comments:
Post a Comment