KABARTO CAMP, IRAQ // They made the captive children, weak from hunger, fight over a single tomato.
Then the ISIL militants told them that in paradise they could eat to their hearts delight, but they could only get there by blowing themselves up.
The lesson was part of the indoctrination inflicted by the militants on boys from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority after the extremist group overran the community’s towns and villages in northern Iraq.
The group forced hundreds of boys, some as young as 7 or 8, into training to become fighters and suicide bombers, infusing them with its murderous ideology.
Now boys who escaped captivity are living in camps for the displaced along with what is left of their families.
“Even here I’m still very afraid,” said 17-year-old Ahmed Ameen Koro, who spoke from the sprawling Esyan Camp in northern Iraq, where he now lives with his mother, sister and a brother, the only surviving members of his family. “I can’t sleep properly because I see them in my dreams.”
The militants stormed into the Yazidi heartland in the summer of 2014, killing tens of thousands of people and kidnapping thousands of women and girls to be used as sex slaves.
The Yazidi minority’s ancient faith is considered heretical by the extremists.
US-backed Kurdish forces drove ISIL out of Sinjar in November 2015, but few Yazidis have returned, and an estimated 3,500 remain in ISIL captivity in Iraq and Syria, according to Human Rights Watch.
‘They looked like monsters’
Ahmed’s family tried to flee when the militants descended on their village, but ISIL fighters captured him, his 13-year-old brother Amin and four cousins.
The boys were taken to the ISIL-held town of Tal Afar, some 50km away, where they were kept in a boys’ school along with dozens of other boys and teens. The adult men were taken away, leaving the women and girls.
“They chose and took the girls they liked,” Ahmed recalled. “I remember the girls were crying, as well as the mothers. They were dragging these girls from the arms of their mothers.”
“They were all very big bearded men, they looked like monsters,” he said.
Ahmed was among some 200 Yazidi boys sent to a two-month training camp in Tal Afar. They studied the Quran and the militants’ hardline interpretation of Islam, and learned to shoot assault rifles and pistols. They watched videos on how to use a suicide belt, throw a grenade, or behead a person.
“They were telling us, ‘You are not Yazidis anymore. You are one of us’,” Ahmed said.
‘When you grow up, you will blow yourself up’
Akram Rasho Khalaf was only 7 when his town was overrun by the militants. His family tried to flee, but the militants opened fire and Akram suffered shrapnel and bullet wounds to his abdomen and hand. He was taken by ambulance to Mosul, seized earlier that summer by ISIL, where he underwent surgery. He never heard from his parents again.
Akram fidgeted as he talked about his captivity, saying he remembered being too hungry to be afraid.
Eventually, he was brought to Raqqa, Syria, the ISIL group’s self-declared capital. There the militants would throw balls at the children’s heads. If anyone cried, he was beaten.
Those who didn’t cry were praised, and told they would one day be suicide bombers.
“They were saying they are our friends, but the kids were scared to death,” Akram said in Kabarto Camp, where he now lives with his uncle, two siblings and other relatives.
“They were telling us, ‘When you grow up, you will blow yourself up, God willing’,” he said.
Training included sliding on their bellies through barricades of burning tires, jumping over obstacles and off roofs. Akram wasn’t strong enough to handle a gun, so he was forced to be a servant.
Escape
Two years after Akram was taken captive, his uncle received a photo of his nephew dressed in ISIL’s black garb and an offer to smuggle him out of Raqqa for $10,500 (Dh38,550) – an increasingly common practice.
The family borrowed the money from a relative in Germany, and eventually the boy was smuggled out. He was reunited with what remains of his family on November 29 – two years and three months after he was seized.
Ahmed escaped sooner. On May 4, 2015, nine months after their capture, Ahmed and his brother Amin sneaked away from the training camp in Tal Afar, hid in a mosque until nightfall, then fled with a small group of others on foot.
“We were very thirsty because we ran out of water,” he said. “We were almost dying.”
But fear kept them going, and after a nine-day, 90km trek, they reached the Sinjar mountains, where Kurdish peshmerga forces rescued them.
‘Hide the knives’
Akram’s uncle says his nephew suffers nightmares, anxiety, sleeplessness and bedwetting. The boy’s 8-year-old brother and 5-year-old sister, rescued separately after ransom was paid, have similar problems.
“Sometimes they become very aggressive and they beat up other children or our children,” he said.
Carl Gaede, an American clinical social worker and executive director of Tutapona, a US-based nonprofit specialising in war trauma, says these reactions are common among survivors.
“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 Mr Gaede, who works with survivors of ISIL brutality.
Like many living in the camp, Ahmed sees a counsellor, and fills his days now with school and running a small shop.
Asked about his dreams for the future, he answers immediately. “When I grow up, I will take my revenge against Daesh, against those infidels.”
* Associated Press
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Company profile
Name: Oulo.com
Founder: Kamal Nazha
Based: Dubai
Founded: 2020
Number of employees: 5
Sector: Technology
Funding: $450,000
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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What is double taxation?
- Americans living abroad file taxes with the Internal Revenue Service, which can cost hundreds of dollars to complete even though about 60 per cent do not owe taxes, according to the Taxpayer Advocate Service
- Those obligations apply to millions of Americans residing overseas – estimates range from 3.9 million to 5.5 million – including so-called "accidental Americans" who are unaware they hold dual citizenship
- The double taxation policy has been a contentious issue for decades, with many overseas Americans feeling that it punishes them for pursuing opportunities abroad
- Unlike most countries, the US follows a citizenship-based taxation system, meaning that Americans must file taxes annually, even if they do not earn any income in the US.
Top 10 most polluted cities
- Bhiwadi, India
- Ghaziabad, India
- Hotan, China
- Delhi, India
- Jaunpur, India
- Faisalabad, Pakistan
- Noida, India
- Bahawalpur, Pakistan
- Peshawar, Pakistan
- Bagpat, India
Quick%20facts
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Company%20Profile
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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The drill
Recharge as needed, says Mat Dryden: “We try to make it a rule that every two to three months, even if it’s for four days, we get away, get some time together, recharge, refresh.” The couple take an hour a day to check into their businesses and that’s it.
Stick to the schedule, says Mike Addo: “We have an entire wall known as ‘The Lab,’ covered with colour-coded Post-it notes dedicated to our joint weekly planner, content board, marketing strategy, trends, ideas and upcoming meetings.”
Be a team, suggests Addo: “When training together, you have to trust in each other’s abilities. Otherwise working out together very quickly becomes one person training the other.”
Pull your weight, says Thuymi Do: “To do what we do, there definitely can be no lazy member of the team.”
FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Saturday
Fiorentina v Torino (8pm)
Hellas Verona v Roma (10.45pm)
Sunday
Parma v Napoli (2.30pm)
Genoa v Crotone (5pm)
Sassuolo v Cagliari (8pm)
Juventus v Sampdoria (10.45pm)
Monday
AC Milan v Bologna (10.45om)
Playing September 30
Benevento v Inter Milan (8pm)
Udinese v Spezia (8pm)
Lazio v Atalanta (10.45pm)
Your rights as an employee
The government has taken an increasingly tough line against companies that fail to pay employees on time. Three years ago, the Cabinet passed a decree allowing the government to halt the granting of work permits to companies with wage backlogs.
The new measures passed by the Cabinet in 2016 were an update to the Wage Protection System, which is in place to track whether a company pays its employees on time or not.
If wages are 10 days late, the new measures kick in and the company is alerted it is in breach of labour rules. If wages remain unpaid for a total of 16 days, the authorities can cancel work permits, effectively shutting off operations. Fines of up to Dh5,000 per unpaid employee follow after 60 days.
Despite those measures, late payments remain an issue, particularly in the construction sector. Smaller contractors, such as electrical, plumbing and fit-out businesses, often blame the bigger companies that hire them for wages being late.
The authorities have urged employees to report their companies at the labour ministry or Tawafuq service centres — there are 15 in Abu Dhabi.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Company%20Profile
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The Outsider
Stephen King, Penguin
Getting there
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly to Johannesburg or Cape Town daily. Flights cost from about Dh3,325, with a flying time of 8hours and 15 minutes. From there, fly South African Airlines or Air Namibia to Namibia’s Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport, for about Dh850. Flying time is 2 hours.
The stay
Wilderness Little Kulala offers stays from £460 (Dh2,135) per person, per night. It is one of seven Wilderness Safari lodges in Namibia; www.wilderness-safaris.com.
Skeleton Coast Safaris’ four-day adventure involves joining a very small group in a private plane, flying to some of the remotest areas in the world, with each night spent at a different camp. It costs from US$8,335.30 (Dh30,611); www.skeletoncoastsafaris.com
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