Yazidi singer forms all-female fighting unit to take revenge on ISIS

18:32 | 19.08.2015
Yazidi singer forms all-female fighting unit to take revenge on ISIS

Yazidi singer forms all-female fighting unit to take revenge on ISIS

The women of an all-female Yazidi batallion is risking death - or worse - to fight back against the ISIS thugs who abducted, raped or murdered thousands of their people.

They were brought together by a renowned Yazidi s nger Xate Shingali, who formed the 'Sun Girls' batallion to take on Islamic State on the battlefield in Iraq.

If her troops are ever caught by the enemy, they will either be killed or, more likely, be held by the extremists as their personal sex slaves.

Even the youngest, just 17, brushes off that terrifying prospect, adding: 'Even if they kill me, I will say I am a Yazidi.'

ISIS kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women and very young girls when it stormed their villages in Sinjar province, northern Iraq, in August 2014.

Those who escaped from their clutches have told of how they endured unimaginable cruelty and sexual abuse at the hands of the ISIS fighters they were forced to marry.

Xate Shingali, 30, who performed traditional Yazidi folklore music all over northern Iraq, was granted special permission to form the unit by the Kurdish President.

She formed the brigade on July 2 and has since recruited 123 female fighters aged between 17 - the minimum age required to join - and 30.

Speaking from the Sharya refugee camp, just outside Dohuk, Xate said the male Kurdish fighters are training them to use AK47s.

She added: 'We have had only basic training and we need more... But we are ready to fight ISIS anytime.'

Xate's youngest recruit, Jane Fares, 17, escaped from Sinjar mountain with her brother and sister when ISIS laid siege to the entire region.

The softly spoken teenager, who has only just joined the unit, said her family is very proud of her, adding: 'My father was so happy when I had told him I had joined this union. 

'All families accept us to join this union... We are happy to fight along side the peshmerga.'

In May, a Yazidi girl the same age as Jane described how she and her little sister were raped daily by a depraved jihadist before they were both sold at a 'slave auction'.

An even younger Yazidi girl known only as Bahar, 14, once told of how she was forced to undergo medical exams to 'prove' her virginity before she was sold to ISIS fighters in another twisted auction.

The terror group is widely known to keep Yazidi girls it kidnaps as sex slaves while male soldiers are executed on camera but none of this seems to worry young Jane. 

She said: 'Before I was scared, now I cannot be scared of them. Any second they tell us to fight ISIS I am ready... I hope to kill them all.'

The young fighter is equally defiant about Islamic State's vile beheading videos, adding: 'If they kill us like that [beheading], we will kill them like that.'

Another recruit, Hadia Hassan, wants revenge for her father's cousins who is still trapped in ISIS territory and the female cousin who recently escaped the group's adopted capital in Raqqa, Syria, where it is thought to hold vile 'sex slave auctions'.

She told MailOnline that her cousin has been psychologically scarred by the abuse she suffered while in captivity, during which time she was beaten by ISIS fighters.

Hadia, from Khana-son village, added: 'Before what happened [in August 2014], we were safe, but what I have seen happen to all the girls makes me want to fight ISIS.

Her father is already battling ISIS with the Kurdish forces and she hopes to join him on the front line soon but her sister, Hadia, who has a father already fighting with the Kurdish forces, hopes to join him soon.

She added: 'My sister wants to fight, but she is too young, 15-year-old, but my father is a peshmerga and he is fighting ISIS in Shingal.'

Hadia - like the other trainees - wants to avenge the thousands of Yazidi lives which were shattered by ISIS's rampage across northern Iraq.

'They kill, but why do that to women, why take mother's from their children?' she asked, 'They don't have any humanity.' 

(dailymail.co.uk)

 

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