A Yazidi Survivor's Struggle Shows The Pain That Endures After ISIS Attack
Um Hiba's trauma over being enslaved, raped and beaten by ISIS after fighters raided her village didn't end when she was freed three years ago. Instead, like thousands of other survivors of the genocide against Yazidis, she languishes, still traumatized, with what's left of her family.
The young woman was 16 when she became one of more than 6,000 Yazidis taken captive by the group that considered the ancient religious minority infidels, according to human rights groups. ISIS fighters killed another 3,000 Yazidis after Kurdish security forces protecting the Sinjar region of Iraq withdrew and ISIS took over large parts of northern Iraq in August 2014, say Yazidi activists.
Um Hiba means the "mother of Hiba" in Arabic — a customary way of identifying women by
