Survivor says captured girls were raped, forced to give blood to wounded fighters

oge okonkwo

January 12, 2015 5:43 PM

Hamshe who has a baby with her late husband - killed by ISIS, says she was held captive for 28 days before she managed to escape

A teenage girl who became pregnant after being captured by Islamic State militants has revealed how girls are being forced to give blood transfusions to keep the terrorists alive.

Reports say 19-year-old Hamshe is understood to be the first Yazidi slave to reveal her identity to the world.

She told her interviewer how sickening it was that Islamist jihadists have been using the blood of captured women and children for wounded militants in the battlefield.

Hamshe who has a baby with her late husband - killed by ISIS, says she was held captive for 28 days before she managed to escape.

She said: 'When each of them took a Yazidi girl, one of them took me to his house and locked me inside a room and told me 'I will not give you food or water if you refuse to marry me. They forced the Yazidi girls to donate blood to IS wounded fighters. Which God allows these acts?'

The teenager in Iraq described how she managed to run away from her captors while holding her baby.

'One night my baby was crying from thirst. I knocked at the door and saw all the guards sleeping outside. I took a bottle of water from them and I ran away with my baby and walked for four hours', she said.

She said she came across an Arab man who took her into his home and looked after her for three days. She added: 'Then they drove me to a Peshmerga checkpoint in Barda Rash. I was at the checkpoint for 7 hours. Then my brother came and took me back home.'

Her mother added: 'I couldn't imagine that my daughter will come back. We thank God for that. Our family is destroyed. The Yazidi community has been destroyed.

'This tragedy has done us enough damage for the rest of our lives.'

Speaking of the moment she was captured by IS militants and moved to a different location in Iraq, Hamshe added: ‘I can never forget when they separated men and women from each other. It was very painful to witness women and girls being taken as a war spoils.

‘Each IS fighter was holding the hand of a Yazidi girl and took her for himself. It was harder than facing death.’

Her plight – and that of many others – is revealed in a new documentary, Slaves of the Caliphate, which will screen on BBC Arabic tonight.

oge okonkwo