'I was raped every day for two years': The horror of life as an ISIS sex slave

It is the dead of night in north-east Syria and armed soldiers are hunting Islamic State (IS) extremists, five years after declaring that the terror group was crushed.

The mainly Kurdish soldiers who make up the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) run in and out of tents in the sprawling Al-Hol refugee camp which sits near the Syria-Iraq border.

Buried beneath this tented city, they've found a cache of weapons and explosives in tunnels, including AK47s, hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades. They've also found IS flags and the coins they used.

It's quiet and dark. The soldiers wear body armour and night-vision goggles. Their boots crunch on stones in the dusty alleyways between the tents. Al-Hol's residents are sleeping and as the troops burst into tents they find children and women under blankets.

The sudden presence of these soldiers, clad in helmets, holding guns and with ammunition strapped to them, startles the occupants. Some of the children start crying.

The surprise is deliberate. IS cells operating in the camp still have Yazidi captives - women and children they kidnapped a decade ago. In the past, extremists have gone to great lengths to hide their slaves or sabayas.

Wary of deceit, the soldiers are curt. They ask the women to lift their veils because they know many Yazidis are too scared to identify themselves for fear of IS retribution. Others taken as children have spent so many years with the extremists, they no longer remember their old lives.

Alone in a tent with two small children, a young woman identifies herself as Yazidi. Her name is Kovan, she says, with a look of fear on her face. If the soldiers leave her in the camp, she will face a violent beating or worse from IS loyalists. But much to Kovan's relief, the soldiers make a quick decision to take her and the little boy, aged six, and the little girl, aged four.

They join several other women and their children who the troops also suspect of being Yazidis. Kovan gathers up some clothes for the children and dons a burqa. She doesn't want to be spotted by anyone in case she ends up back in the camp.

The group is bundled into a military vehicle and taken out of the camp's barricaded perimeter. They will all be investigated to determine exactly who they are. The journey out is tense. Nobody speaks. These women's lives depend on being able to prove who they are, but without any formal documents it will be an agonising process.

Source:News.sky.com

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Sky News follows Kurdish-led troops as they hunt for fresh terror cells and search for kidnapped slaves. Women and children were enslaved and raped when Islamic State fanatics overran the home of the Yazidis in 2014

Full story from Sky's special correspondent @AlexCrawfordSky ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/RrQnmSpTOO — Sky News (@SkyNews) August 9, 2024