I never thought I'd find happiness... but now I'm planning a wedding' - Yazidi s*x slave gang r*ped and tortured by her ISIS captors falls in love at last
A former Yazidi sex slave who was beaten and gang-raped ‘in every way imaginable’ on a daily basis by ISIS terrorists during four months of hell has finally found happiness after getting engaged to a fellow refugee.
Fareeda Khalaf, who was 16 when she was kidnapped by Islamic State, feared she would never be able to live a normal life after being tainted by the sexual abuse she suffered in captivity.
She was so badly beaten that her skull was broken in three places, she temporarily lost her eyesight and was so desperate she tried to kill herself several times to escape her tormentors.
But five years on, Fareeda, now 21, has learned to trust again and found love with fellow Yazidi refugee Nazhan Elias, 23.
‘I never thought I’d find happiness with someone, after what I’d been through,' she told MailOnline. 'Now I’m planning an engagement party and a wedding.’
Nazhan added: ‘I’m so proud of her. I’ll always do all I can for her so she can do whatever she wants with her life now.’
Fareeda - who has written a book called The Girls Who Beat ISIS - lived a simple teenage life going to school and dreaming of becoming a maths teacher in Kocho, northern Iraq.
That life fell apart in August 2014 when Islamic State fighters rounded up everyone in her village, saying they’d be killed if they didn’t convert to Islam. The Yazidis - a minority Kurdish group in Iraq - follow an ancient pre-Islamic faith.
All the women and girls were kept in a school. The men were taken away and Fareeda unwittingly heard her father being shot and killed alongside the other men.
The teenager then became one of 7,000 Yazidi women and girls forced into sexual slavery when the militia took over her community’s heartland in Sinjar, northern Iraq, and slaughtered 5,000 people.
She was taken to Solag in northern Iraq where the pregnant and older women were removed and shot, with 80 of their bodies eventually found in another mass grave.
Fareeda, her mother, two brothers and 150 girls aged eight to 30 were taken to Mosul, with other Yazidis. She was separated from her family when she was sent on to Raqqa in Syria.
Crying as she recalled her horrific experience and sexual abuse, she said: ‘They did everything imaginable that you wouldn’t want done to an animal. We were raped, humiliated and passed around daily.
'For 10 days I hid in Raqqa while men selected us for all kinds of sexual and physical violence, day and night.
When I heard what they were about to do to me I found some glass and slashed my wrist. I thought I’d die but they saved me.
‘There were five or six men at a time, there was nothing I could do to stop them when they found me.
'They did everything you can imagine. They’d taunt us, sell us, give us as gifts and switch slaves.
‘I’ve tried to kill myself at least four times, once taking an overdose and another time hanging myself, and I tried to escape.'
Fareeda, who now lives in Germany, regularly defied IS and was punished as a result.
‘My father always told me I was strong, that I should believe I’m strong whatever. His words made my hold my head up high, so they beat me more because I challenged them and made them angry. I wouldn't become a Muslim.
‘I told them real men would fight other men. I’d also protect a nine-year-old girl from them, so they’d just beat me instead.’
Recalling the group attacks, she said: ‘I was taken away to a room where six - including the commander - beat me repeatedly and raped me.
Her life fell apart in August 2014 when Islamic State fighters rounded up everyone in her village, saying they’d be killed if they didn’t convert to Islam. The Yazidis - a minority Kurdish group in Iraq - follow an ancient pre-Islamic faith. Pictured as a young girl
‘It went on for such a long time. They broke my skull in three places, I lost the sight in one eye temporarily and I couldn’t walk afterwards for two months. Only surgery stopped the headaches but I still have pain sometimes.'
After four months in captivity, Fareeda and eight others were taken to a boarded-up house in another part of Syria to wait for ISIS men who threatened to pass them around again and kill them.
Fareeda eventually persuaded the other girls to follow her through an unlocked door over what the militants had claimed was mined ground.
They fled to Kurdistan, northern Iraq, where she was reunited with her brother who’d survived the mass shooting which had killed their father.
She discovered the 15-year-old had played dead in the same mass grave as his father, covered in a family friend’s blood.
Fareeda arrived back in Iraq on 17 December 2014, a date she describes as her ‘real birthday, the date I was free from ISIS.’
Six months later she fled to Germany - with her mother and brothers who had also escaped IS - and met her fiancé there a year ago.
Now 21, she campaigns globally for the Yazidi people, for justice in their name and to preserve the mass graves - so one day she can find the remains of her father.
'I campaign to free other Yazidis still held, to get justice, to get misplaced Yazidis a permanent home and to protect our mass graves,' she said.
Looking to her future, she said: ‘I didn’t think anyone would ever want me after all that I’d been through. But now I’ve found my fiancé I have his support to go on.’
Nearly 3,000 Yazidi women and children remain in captivity and the UN has called the killings of thousands of Yazidis a genocide. Its Security Council is collecting evidence to use against Islamic State.
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney represents another Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad, 24, who’s also written a book on her captivity, and is pushing for the Islamic group to be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court
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