Iraqi Boys Who Manage to Escape ISIS Captivity Suffer From Nightmares, Anxiety, and Bedwetting
Torn from their loved ones, taught to behead people, made to fight over a single tomato and blow themselves up so they can be in paradise – these are just some of the horrors revealed by a group of Iraqi boys who escaped from the clutches of the Islamic State (ISIS).
Separated from their loved ones at a young age, some between seven to 17 years old, the boys recently recounted the horrors of their imprisonment to mediamen.
The boys managed to escape and are now living with other Iraqi refugees in temporary homes but the nightmares followed them.
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"Even here I'm still very afraid. I can't sleep properly because I see them in my dreams," 17-year old Ahmed Ameen Koro told the Associated Press.
Ahmed's family was among those caught in the middle of the fight between ISIS and Kurdish fighters in the town of Sinjar in 2015. They tried to escape, but the family had to split up. The women boarded the car driven by their father while Ahmed, his younger brother, and four cousins walked.
He said the ISIS militants took some of the town's residents as captives when they entered their town.
"They chose and took the girls they liked," he said. "I remember the girls were crying, as well as the mothers. They were dragging these girls from the arms of their mothers."
Ahmed said the militants who attacked the town "looked liked monsters."
But the horror was just beginning.
Ahmed and his family were taken by the militants to a town held by ISIS, Tal Afar, reported Stripes. In there, they were kept in a boys' school with other teens.
After a few days, they were transferred to Badoush Prison near Mosul for 15 days. Ahmed suspected that they were given tranquilizers mixed in with the food as the captives fell asleep after consuming the food.
In Badoush, their training began with a morning prayer and a hardline teaching of Islam coupled with military exercises. The boys were taught to jump from roofs and slide on their bellies through burning rubber tires.
Most of them kept mum about not being Muslims as they feared for their lives.
Their training also included shooting with guns and pistols. They were taught how to behead a person and use a suicide belt.
"They were telling us if we were in a fight against infidels... we had to blow ourselves up and kill them all," he said.
Seven-year old Akram Rasho Khalaf saw his mother shot in front of him when militants rained bullets at them, hitting his mother. He was also hit in the belly but was taken by ISIS for surgery, and he survived.
"They separated me from my mother, my sister, my brother and my father," he said.
He was brought to Raqqa where he received training. Some of the boys cried and were tortured while others who didn't were encouraged and told that someday, they will be suicide bombers.
Ahmed was able to escape ISIS while Akram was smuggled out of the camp for the price of $10,500, which the family had to borrow from relatives.
While they were reunited with their family, the boys who escaped the clutches of the militants were never the same again.
Akram's uncle revealed that his nephew suffered from nightmares, bedwetting, anxiety, and sleeplessness.
"Sometimes they become very aggressive and they beat up other children or our children," said his uncle. "They are not like other normal children. Their mental health is very bad."
Those who escaped are now seeing counselors to help them get over the trauma and horrors they witnessed.
American clinical social worker Carl Gaede said Akram's reactions are common among victims of brutality among the militants.
"We've seen a number of the children acting out in violent ways and family members needing to hide the knives, hide dangerous items out of fear of how the children might use them," said the social worker.
Even as Ahmed has sought help from a counselor and has tried to incorporate himself in regular life, the trauma is still very much evident in his ways and thinking.
When asked what he planned to do when he grows up, his only answer, "When I grow up I will take my revenge against Daesh, against those infidels."
