“Nasir” is one of the lucky ones who managed
to escape from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which was
training him to be a suicide bomber.
ISIS sends more child soldiers into battle.
Nasir has reunited with his mother at the Esyan refugee camp in Kurdistan and returned back to school.
Narrating his shocking ordeal to CNN, the 12-year-old boy asked not to show his face and disclose his real name.
“There were 60 of us. The scariest times for us all were when the airstrikes happened. They’d lead all of us underground into the tunnels to hide. They told us the Americans, the unbelievers, were trying to kill us but they, the fighters, they loved us. They would look after us better than our parents.
“When they were training us they would tell us our parents were unbelievers and that our first job was to go back to kill them,” he said.
Nasir said that the youngest of the boys was just 5 years old, and none of them was exempt from horrible trainings carried out by the terrorists.
“We weren’t allowed to cry but I would think about my mother, think about her worrying about me and I’d try and cry quietly. When we escaped and I saw my mother again, it was like coming back to life,” he recalled.
Nasir escaped from ISIS after he was featured in a propaganda video made at the Al Farouq Institute in Raqqa, Syria.
Unbelievably Hard Decision
According to Aziz Abdullah Hadur, a Peshmerga commander, those who reach the relative safety of the Gweyr frontline, Iraq, are in a desperate state.
“When they arrive to us they’re so skinny, they barely look human. They tell us they’ve been living in a hell,” he said.
Recalling some fierce battles in northern Iraq, the commander said that he and his fighters sometimes had to open fire on children who were sent by ISIS to attack them.
“Many times when we are facing ISIS, we see the children at the front line and they’re wearing explosive vests. They are brainwashed.
“We don’t know when they approach our positions whether they’re really escaping or they’ve been sent to kill us.
“When they make it through our lines they kill our fighters. It’s an unbelievably hard decision. You don’t know what to do because if you don’t kill them they’ll kill you,” Hadur said.
Nouri rests with his grandparents while his brother Saman sleeps. Credits: CNN
Another boy who escaped from ISIS’ clutches is 11-year-old Nouri, who was kidnapped with his family and taken to the terrorists’ camp in Tel Aafar, northern Iraq.
When Nouri refused to join other boys for training, ISIS fighters broke his leg in three places.
When the boy’s leg healed, he could only limp and became “useless” for ISIS. Rather than shoot him they allowed his grandmother to come and carry him home.
“They asked us to come with them for the training. At first we refused to go because we were afraid. They asked me to go to the mountain and I refused again, then they broke my leg. That saved me. The other children were taken by force,” he said.
Nouri’s 5-year-old brother Saman was also released. However, cruel beatings at the hands of ISIS fighters traumatized him; therefore, every night the boy wakes up screaming and suffers from seizures.
Unfortunately, the boys’ parents and their baby brother still remain in captivity.
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