Young widow chooses suicide over marriage to Isis commander
Nicola Smith, Baghdad
The Yazidis are at risk (Adam Ferguson)
Nada Qasim, 20, had been a widow for 40 days when she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Her suicide was prompted not by her husband’s death, but by her father’s attempt to make her marry a commander in Isis.
Nada’s story provides a glimpse of the cruelty Isis reserves for women amid growing reports of forced marriages, sexual slavery, kidnapping and young girls being bartered between fighters.
In a dusty, rundown suburb of Baghdad, her sister Fatima recalled how a “happy, loving” young woman’s life had unravelled after her 21-year-old husband Adil, a police officer, was shot dead in June while fighting to protect the Shi’ite town of Amerli from the Sunni terrorists.
“Nada did not see the body and she was so shocked that she would not believe that he was dead,” said Fatima. “She cried all night cuddling a bird that he kept as a pet. Over the next days she could not talk because she was so sad.”
Her misery was compounded when her father, a Sunni who had cut her off for marrying a Shi’ite, telephoned to say an Isis commander would marry her the next day on the outskirts of the town.
Nada was horrified. The women of Amerli had been living in fear of Isis after hearing reports of atrocities in the neighbouring Shi’ite village of Payshir.
“Many young men ran to Amerli and told us they [Isis] had taken their wives and daughters,” said Fatima. “When they returned they found 15 women who had been raped and then hanged from a pipe by cable wire.”
Nada is thought to have gone into shock after her father’s call. “Early in the morning we heard a huge sound in our home. We ran to Nada’s room and saw that she had shot herself in the head,” Fatima said.
Amerli’s traumas have been repeated in other parts of northern Iraq under Isis occupation. In several villages, men have reportedly been lined up and executed while their wives and children have been abducted and trafficked across the country.
Bedal Al-Yas Khder, the chairman of a charity helping the Yazidi minority, which has been besieged by Isis in its ancient homeland of Sinjar, estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 women and girls have been kidnapped by militants to be sold as brides or abused as slaves. Witnesses from Sinjar claim young women have been separated from their families and driven away in lorries and buses.
Last week Amnesty International accused Isis of carrying out a systematic campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Yazidis, including the abduction of “hundreds, if not thousands” of women and children. Wealthy Yazidi businessmen have been trying to negotiate their release, offering to buy them back but with little success.
Anwar Darweesh, the owner of a trading company, said he had paid £3,000 to a taxi driver to help rescue two female cousins, aged 15 and 16, who were being held prisoner in Fallujah, Anbar province, and who had managed to contact relatives by phone.
After buying the girls safe passage to Baghdad, Darweesh secured a flight for them back to Erbil, northern Iraq, to be reunited with their families. “I did not ask them what happened inside the house. I did not want to break their hearts,” he said.
Dawood Shammo Kheder, a Baghdad hotel owner who helped to rescue eight girls said that three had since committed suicide.
“Two threw themselves off of Mount Sinjar, and one burnt herself alive. It is very hard for girls to face society after being raped,” he said.
The Yazidis are at risk (Adam Ferguson)
Nada Qasim, 20, had been a widow for 40 days when she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Her suicide was prompted not by her husband’s death, but by her father’s attempt to make her marry a commander in Isis.
Nada’s story provides a glimpse of the cruelty Isis reserves for women amid growing reports of forced marriages, sexual slavery, kidnapping and young girls being bartered between fighters.
In a dusty, rundown suburb of Baghdad, her sister Fatima recalled how a “happy, loving” young woman’s life had unravelled after her 21-year-old husband Adil, a police officer, was shot dead in June while fighting to protect the Shi’ite town of Amerli from the Sunni terrorists.
“Nada did not see the body and she was so shocked that she would not believe that he was dead,” said Fatima. “She cried all night cuddling a bird that he kept as a pet. Over the next days she could not talk because she was so sad.”
Her misery was compounded when her father, a Sunni who had cut her off for marrying a Shi’ite, telephoned to say an Isis commander would marry her the next day on the outskirts of the town.
Nada was horrified. The women of Amerli had been living in fear of Isis after hearing reports of atrocities in the neighbouring Shi’ite village of Payshir.
“Many young men ran to Amerli and told us they [Isis] had taken their wives and daughters,” said Fatima. “When they returned they found 15 women who had been raped and then hanged from a pipe by cable wire.”
Nada is thought to have gone into shock after her father’s call. “Early in the morning we heard a huge sound in our home. We ran to Nada’s room and saw that she had shot herself in the head,” Fatima said.
Amerli’s traumas have been repeated in other parts of northern Iraq under Isis occupation. In several villages, men have reportedly been lined up and executed while their wives and children have been abducted and trafficked across the country.
Bedal Al-Yas Khder, the chairman of a charity helping the Yazidi minority, which has been besieged by Isis in its ancient homeland of Sinjar, estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 women and girls have been kidnapped by militants to be sold as brides or abused as slaves. Witnesses from Sinjar claim young women have been separated from their families and driven away in lorries and buses.
Last week Amnesty International accused Isis of carrying out a systematic campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Yazidis, including the abduction of “hundreds, if not thousands” of women and children. Wealthy Yazidi businessmen have been trying to negotiate their release, offering to buy them back but with little success.
Anwar Darweesh, the owner of a trading company, said he had paid £3,000 to a taxi driver to help rescue two female cousins, aged 15 and 16, who were being held prisoner in Fallujah, Anbar province, and who had managed to contact relatives by phone.
After buying the girls safe passage to Baghdad, Darweesh secured a flight for them back to Erbil, northern Iraq, to be reunited with their families. “I did not ask them what happened inside the house. I did not want to break their hearts,” he said.
Dawood Shammo Kheder, a Baghdad hotel owner who helped to rescue eight girls said that three had since committed suicide.
“Two threw themselves off of Mount Sinjar, and one burnt herself alive. It is very hard for girls to face society after being raped,” he said.
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