Yazidi mothers of children by Daesh face heartbreaking choices

Agencies
October 28, 2018

Dahuk, Oct 28: The 26-year-old Yazidi mother faces a heartbreaking choice.

Her family is preparing to emigrate from Iraq to Australia and start a new life after the suffering Daesh wreaked on their small religious minority. She is desperate to go with them, but there is also someone she can’t bear to leave behind: Her 2-year-old daughter, Maria, fathered by the Daesh fighter who enslaved her.

She knows her family will never allow her to bring Maria. They don’t even know the girl exists. The only relative who knows is an uncle who took the girl from her mother and put her in an orphanage in Baghdad after they were freed from captivity last year.

“My heart bursts from my chest every time I think of leaving her. She is a piece of me, but I don’t know what to do,” she said, speaking to The Associated Press at a camp in northern Iraq for displaced Yazidis.

The woman spoke on condition she be identified only as Umm Maria, or “mother of Maria,” for fear her family and community would find out.

Umm Maria’s torment points to the gaping wounds suffered by Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority at the hands of Daesh. When the militants overran the Yazidis’ northern Iraqi heartland of Sinjar in 2014, they inflicted on the community an almost medieval fate. Hundreds of Yazidi men and boys were massacred, tens of thousands fled their homes, and the militants took thousands of women and girls as sex slaves, viewing them as heretics worthy of subjugation and rape.

The women were distributed among Daesh fighters in Iraq and Syria and over the following years were traded and sold as chattel. Many women bore children from their captors — the numbers of children are not known, but they are no doubt in the hundreds.

The Nobel Peace Prize this year put a focus on victims of sexual violence and on the Yazidis in particular, when one of the women abducted by Daesh, Nadia Murad, was named a co-winner of the award.

Many, though not all, of the women have returned home, as the extremist group’s “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria has been brought down. While some of them want nothing to do with babies born of rape and slavery, some, like Umm Maria, want to keep them.

But Yazidi families most often reject the children.

That is a reflection the deeply entrenched traditions followed by the Yazidi community, seeking to preserve its identity among the mainly Muslim population, many of whom for centuries viewed the ancient faith with suspicion. The Yazidis, who speak a form of Kurdish, keep their community closed off, their rituals little known.

They have always rejected mixed marriages and children fathered by non-Yazidis. In this case, the stain is even greater since the fathers were the same Sunni Muslim radicals who sought to wipe out the community. Under Iraqi law, the children are considered Muslims.

The community has taken a relatively progressive stance toward the mothers. In Iraq’s traditional society, rape can bring stigma on the victim. But the Yazidis’ spiritual leader, Babashekh Khirto Hadji Ismail, issued an edict in 2015 declaring women enslaved by the militants to be “pure,” with their faith intact. The declaration allowed the women to be welcomed back into Yazidi society.

But not the children.

Khidr Domary, a prominent Yazidi activist, acknowledged that the community’s insular traditions need some reform and said the leadership has shown flexibility as it tries to deal with the trauma left by Daesh, known by their group’s Arabic acronym, Daesh. He said mothers should be free to bring back Daesh-fathered children if they wish.

But “that cannot include reform to accommodate the results of Daesh crimes,” he said. Pressure from family and society against accepting the children is powerful.

“It is difficult, even for the mother, to bring a child to live in our midst when it is possible that his Daeshi father may have killed hundreds of us with his own hands, including relatives of the mother,” he said.

Umm Maria was taken captive along with other women in August 2014, when the militants stormed Sinjar, near the Syrian border. She was eventually taken to Syria as the slave of an Daesh fighter, whom she knew only by his alias, Abu Turab.

Abu Turab was killed in fighting in 2015. His family sold her for $1,800 to another militant, an Iraqi she identified as Ahmed Mohammed. He took her to Iraq’s Mosul, where she lived with his first wife and their children. Soon after she gave birth to Maria, he too was killed in fighting in 2015.

She was consigned to a Daesh “guesthouse” where wounded Daesh fighters received first aid or took a rest from the front lines — and used Yazidi women for sex.

As Iraqi security forces assaulted Mosul, the women at the house were moved from one neighborhood to another to escape bombardment. In the summer of 2017, as the city fell, Umm Maria escaped into government-held territory, though she was injured during the shelling.

At the hospital, an uncle persuaded Umm Maria to give them the child until she healed, promising to return Maria to her afterward.

“Had I known they planned on depositing her in an orphanage, I would have never given her,” she said.

Umm Maria has seen the child — now around 3 years old — only once since. Several months ago, she visited her at the Baghdad orphanage, spending two days with Maria.

“She did not recognize me, but I recognized her,” Umm Maria said. “How could I not? She is a piece of me.”

Many Yazidis see it as more essential than ever for the community to protect its identity at a time when it is struggling for survival. The Yazidis were estimated to number about 700,000 before 2014. Since the IS onslaught, nearly 15 percent are believed to have fled the country, mostly to the West. Nearly half of those still in the country live in camps for the displaced, scattered around northern Iraq.

About 3,000 Yazidis remain missing or in captivity. Of these, experts believe only a third may still be alive.

The Yazidis are also trying to regain their place in a country where the social fabric has been torn apart by IS. Though there were always tensions, Yazidis lived side-by-side with Muslim neighbors in a northern region that is home to many minorities, including Christians and Kurds.

Now Yazidis deeply distrust Arab Muslims, accusing them of sympathizing with Daesh and even sometimes joining the militants in the slaughter and enslavement of Yazidis. The community also says the central government has not done enough to get back Yazidi women. It was largely left to families to put together thousands of dollars to buy back daughters or wives, or pay smugglers to sneak them out.

“We have become so resentful of Muslims that we now tell our children not to be like Muslims when they are mean to each other,” said Abdullah Shirim, a Yazidi businessman.

Shirim is credited with rescuing dozens of Yazidi women from captivity through a network of business contacts, smugglers and bands of bounty hunters.

The community is wrestling with integrating thousands of Yazidi children affected by the war. Those whose parents are missing or dead are usually taken in by extended family, but if relatives can’t afford it, they end up in orphanages. Children snatched by Daesh and raised as Muslims have to be retaught the Yazidi faith. Boys forced to become child soldiers have to be led back from Daesh’s virulently violent training.

Amid those traumas, there is little sympathy for children fathered by militants.

Another Yazidi woman, a 21-year-old who asked to be identified only as Umm Bassam, described how when she left Daesh territory in Syria in August, she contacted her family and asked if she could bring home her 9-month-old son, Bassam, fathered by the Daesh militant who held her.

Their reply: “We cannot allow a Daeshi baby to live with us.”

Umm Bassam had been in Daesh captivity for several years. The Daesh fighter who held her — an Iraqi — took her across the border into Syria in the summer of 2017 as the militants’ rule crumbled in Iraq.

In Syria, she gave birth. She, the IS fighter and their child had to flee from town to town as the militants lost ground in Syria. Eventually, the fighter had her smuggled out to Kurdish-held territory, while he fled into the desert along with other militants.

In the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli, Umm Bassam ended up in a house with other freed Yazidi women, many of them also with children.

After her family’s rejection, she relented and agreed to leave Bassam with Kurdish authorities. They tried to reassure her, she said, telling her the child would be cared for in an orphanage. They said at least 100 children had been left by Yazidi women.

“I was hugging him until the moment they took him away from me,” she said. They told her, “Don’t worry, in 10 days, he won’t remember you or recognize you. We will make him forget everything.”

But Umm Bassam remembers — every detail. Her son was chubby and fair-skinned, with a beautiful face, she said. He had a mole below his armpit.

Back among her community, cut off from her son by borders, traditions and officials, she sees no choice now. She will bury it all. She’ll get married, she says. She’ll build a new family.

“I’ll make it like I never saw anything. I’ll try to forget everything and start a new life.”

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says at least five people, including a staff member, were killed and 22 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a food distribution centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Wednesday said that the strike hit one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the eastern part of Rafah.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” Lazzarini said.

“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," he continued.

He said the attack was carried out even though "the Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Lazzarini further urged the protection of the UN, its staff, and its premises and called for an independent investigation.

Israel acknowledged an airstrike on a food aid distribution center in southern Gaza, which it claimed targeted and killed a high-ranking member of Hamas. 

Meanwhile, the statement by the UNRWA head added that since October 7, at least 165 team members have been killed while in the line of duty and more than 400 people sheltering in UN buildings also lost their lives due to Israel's attacks.

More than 150 of the agency’s facilities, including schools and shelters, have been hit in the war, with some destroyed, and UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers, according to the UNRWA.

Six aid seekers killed in Israeli attack

Separately, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said six people were killed in the latest attack on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.

The Wafa news agency said some 83 people who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

Over the past weeks, Israeli forces have increased their offensives on the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups gather to wait for aid deliveries.

Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout on Monday night.

The Israeli military has restricted the delivery of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza for weeks, and thousands of children are going without sufficient food and medication.

The prevention of aid convoys comes as humanitarian officials have already issued a dire warning, stating that unless a ceasefire is implemented and aid is significantly increased, the toll of malnutrition and disease is expected to rise, leading to an alarming loss of lives.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,272 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,024 others.

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News Network
March 15,2024

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The leader of Yemen’s Houthis has said that the Yemeni armed forces will continue their retaliatory operations against Israeli-affiliated commercial vessels, preventing the passage of the ships even through the Indian Ocean and through the Cape of Good Hope.  

About 34 Houthi fighters have been killed since the Yemeni armed forces began to attack shipping lanes in solidarity with the people of Palestine under attack in Gaza by Israel, Ansarullah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday.

Yemeni forces have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against Israeli and Israel-bound ships since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's war on Gaza.

Al-Houthi said 73 ships have been targeted in Yemeni operations in support of Gaza so far, adding rarely does any ship associated with the Israeli enemy pass through Bab al-Mandab.

“This week, support operations included 12 operations targeting ships and barges, executed with a total of 58 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden,” he said.

“Our operations this time reached unprecedented ranges, with 3 operations reaching the Indian Ocean, by the grace of Allah,” he added. “The total number of targeted ships and barges reached 73.”

Al-Houthi said that the operations will continue as long as the aggression and siege on Gaza persist.

The United States and Britain began striking Yemen in January in order to dissuade the country from targeting Israeli ships which carry arms and logistics for the onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Al-Houthi said the Americans and the British have received “painful blows” from the Yemeni armed forces in retaliation.

The American-British “aggression will not affect the escalating course of our operations in terms of range, momentum, precision, and strength,” said Al-Houthi.  

“What can stop the Yemeni military’s maritime operations is only the cessation of aggression and siege on Gaza,” he noted.

The American stubbornness and escalation of aggression result in only one outcome: the expansion of the conflict, the widening of the circle of war and events, and the tension of the situation at the regional level in general, he stated.

He went on to say that the Yemeni armed forces will continue and effectively expand the range of the operations to reach areas and locations that the enemy never expected.

Al-Houthi said what insures the navigation security in the Red Sea is for any country not to participate in the Israeli aggression against Gaza.

He said the Americans and those who drag the United States towards the militarization of the Red Sea are the ones who undermine international navigation.

“By the grace of Allah and His assistance, we aim to prevent the passage of ships associated with the Israeli enemy even through the Indian Ocean and from South Africa towards the Cape of Good Hope,” he stated.

“For this important, advanced, and significant step, we have begun to implement our operations related to it through the Indian Ocean and from South Africa towards the Cape of Good Hope,” he said.

There is absolutely no choice for the American and the British but to stop the aggression on Gaza and stop starving the people in Gaza, he declared.

“Our human conscience, our religion, our morals, our dignity, our pride, our belonging to Islam, prohibit us from watching the oppression of Palestine or remaining silent about it,” said Houthi.

He added that the Yemeni military is in continuous development of capabilities and in constant expansion of the stance in its range, effectiveness, and impact.

“The American's actions this week, involving aerial bombings and naval shelling, amounted to 32 bombing raids and strikes, which, as usual, were unsuccessful,” he revealed.

“The impact of the American raids and bombings is negligible regarding our missile and drone capabilities and in terms of continuing operations effectively to counter it, and in preventing ships associated with the Israeli enemy,” he stated.

He concluded by saying that the Yemeni armed forces are continuously escalating, and increasing capabilities to attack enemy ships. “No matter what the Americans do, they will not be able to stop us from supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they won’t stop retaliatory strikes.

The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.

Since the start of Israel's genocidal war following Operation al-Aqsa Storm by Gaza-based resistance movements on October 7, 2023, more than 31,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, have lost their lives.

The Israeli military offensive has left a trail of destruction in Gaza, leaving hospitals in ruins and displacing around half of its 2.4 million residents.

Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population residing there.

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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