SHAFAQNA – A Yazidi girl has told the story of her life as a sex slave in the so-called Caliphate.
The girl was kidnapped along with thousands other Yazidi women and children when ISIS took control of northern Iraq in 2014.
More than 50.000 members of the long-persecuted religious and ethnic group were trapped when ISIS besieged Mount Sinjar.
Ekhlas was captured and held as a sex slave by the group although she had tried to escape several times. Now she has spoken about the horrors of her ordeal that left her so hopeless she tried to kill herself in captivity.
“Every day for six months he raped me. I tried to kill myself,” she told the BBC.
“He picked me out of 150 girls by drawing lots. He was so ugly, like a beast, with his long hair. He smelt so bad, I was so frightened I couldn’t look at him.”
Finally, Ekhlas managed to escape one day while her captor was out fighting and was taken to a refugee camp. “How am I telling you this without crying? I tell you I ran out of tears,” she said.
Around 9,900 Yazidis were killed or captured when ISIS took over Mount Sinjar in the summer of 2014.
Of that figure 3,100 were murdered, with almost half executed by gunshot, beheading or being burned alive, while the rest died from starvation, dehydration or injuries during the ISIS siege on Mount Sinjar.
According to researchers, the true scale of the genocide inflicted on the Yazidis may never be known as thousands remain in captivity.