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Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Kurdish children give accounts of ISIS/ISIL/IS/xyz treatment while in captivity


Below, a few paragraphs from a longer report.

From HRW:
Kurdish children from the Syrian city of Kobani (or Ain al-`Arab in Arabic) were tortured and abused while detained by Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today. Four children gave detailed accounts of the suffering they endured while held for four months with about 100 other children.

The children, aged 14 to 16, were among 153 Kurdish boys whom ISIS abducted on May 29, 2014, as they traveled home to Kobani. According to Syrian Kurdish officials and media reports, ISIS released the last 25 of the children on October 29. Interviewed one by one in Turkey, where they had fled to safety after ISIS released them in late September, the four boys described enduring repeated beatings with a hose and electric cable, as well as being forced to watch videos of ISIS beheadings and attacks.....

.......ISIS initially stopped about 250 Kurdish students from Kobani as they traveled home after taking their middle school exams in Aleppo on May 29. ISIS released all the girls, around 100, within a few hours, but kept 153 boys at a school in Manbij, a town 55 kilometers southwest of Kobani.
About 50 of the boys escaped or were released between June and September, with about 15 of them apparently being exchanged for ISIS fighters held by the Kurdish armed group, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). In late September, ISIS released about 75 of the remaining boys, including those interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The four children did not know what prompted their release........

.......One child who muttered “Oh Mother!” when he was caught in another group’s room was strung up, suspended with his hands tied behind his back, one foot tied to his hands, and told he should call on God, not his mother......

.....All of the children described being forced to pray five times a day and undergoing intense religious instruction. The teachers also forced them to watch videos of ISIS in combat and beheading captives.
The children said the guards and religious teachers at the school were a combination of Syrian Arabs and people from Jordan, Libya, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia. The Syrians gave the worst beatings, especially a man named Abu Shehid from near Aleppo, all of them said.........

.....The four boys said they got no explanation for their release beyond that they had finished their religious training. They were given 150 Syrian pounds (US$1), a DVD with religious material, and let go.....

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