6 Years On, Memories Of Daesh/ISIS Prison Cell Haunt Ezidi Woman

Six years ago, an Ezidi woman escaped from a Daesh/ISIS prison cell. She still takes pills to fall asleep.

"Even though it has been six-and-half years since I escaped from captivity, I am constantly taking drugs because of my psychological problems. When I use drugs, I calm down a bit, otherwise, I cannot sleep," Sara Revo told Anadolu Agency.

Revo, 70, lost her son eight years ago in a Daesh/ISIS terrorist attack on the Sinjar district of Iraq. Now, she lives with her grandchildren in the Sharya Refugee Camp in Iraq's Duhok province.

Recalling the day when Daesh kidnapped nine people from her family, she said: "We left the house in the morning on that fateful day. We fell into the trap set by Daesh. I and a few of our relatives were captured."

She said his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were also captured and the terrorists took them to Tal Afar.

"They were separating the young girls from us. Nobody could speak out because they were killing them," she said, adding that his son and other men separated from them after three days.

"After one-and-half years, I escaped from captivity and realized that my son and three others were killed near Tal Afar. I recognized them by their clothes," she said.

She said her grandchildren and daughter-in-law also escaped.

"After my daughter-in-law came out of prison, she left us and went to Europe. These three children were left without a mother and father." the grieving woman said.

In the Aug. 3, 2014 attack on the Sinjar district, where Ezidis live, Daesh/ISIS kidnapped and killed thousands of people, including women and children, or held them in prison cells.

Some 300,000 people lived in Sinjar before the attacks, two-thirds of them Ezidi and the rest Sunni Kurds and Arabs.

Daesh/ISIS has been active in the Iraqi provinces of Salahuddin, Anbar, Kirkuk, and Diyala, at a time when the federal government is struggling to contain attacks by the terrorist group by launching security and military operations in the country's northern, western, and eastern regions.

In 2017, Iraq declared victory over Daesh/ISIS by reclaiming all territories the terrorist group controlled since the summer of 2014, estimated to be about one-third of the country's territory. But the PKK terror group remains active in the region.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. -