When saving your children means leaving one behind

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Read: 1123     12:00     02 Сентябрь 2019    

Zahra Halo made the heartbreaking decision to flee Islamic State with most of her children while one of her sons had been missing for years. Now, she has found him and wants to bring him home.

Zahra Halo is a mother who knows how to fight. She has learnt how to suffer, too.

For years she has battled to keep her children safe and her family together.

Her youngest son, Hazim, was missing for almost five years.

Now, she has found him and has just one last step to bring him home — securing a visa through the Department of Home Affairs.

A family separated

Ms Halo was captured along with her husband, four daughters and Hazim when Islamic State raided Shingal in northern Iraq in 2014, killing and raping at will — only her eldest son, Hasan, escaped.

She sobs as she tells her story.

Zahra Halo says it was a very difficult decision to come to Australia.

“It was a disaster. It was a disaster for the Ezidi people.”

For hundreds of years the Ezidi (the Halo family prefers Ezidi to the more commonly used Yazidi) have been a stateless persecuted minority.

The Australian Parliament called Islamic State’s assault on the Ezidi a genocide.

Ms Halo’s husband was separated from her. She has not heard from him since.

Eleven-year-old Hazim was also taken from his family, and it would be almost five years before they could contact him again.

Ms Halo and her eldest daughter Haseeba, 17, were sold as slaves, and nine-year-old Lina was struck in the head when warplanes bombed the prison where they were being held.

We were trying to stop her bleeding with only tissues.

“It was really, really horrible — they took two of my kids and the other one was injured in my hands.”

Lina survived and was eventually moved with her mother and two sisters to Raqqa, Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold, and held as slaves for 11 months.

They were regularly abused and ordered to convert to Islam, Ms Halo said.

But when they tried to take Lina away, she decided to risk everything and flee.

Lina was nine years old and they were trying to marry her to a 45-year-old man, so I escaped.

After a long and hazardous journey — during which people she sought help from had sold them for ransom — Ms Halo arrived in Iraq and reunited with Hasan, who had survived alone for almost a year.

It would be another two years before Haseeba was released after her Islamic State captors were defeated in Mosul.

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When saving your children means leaving one behind

2019/09/54650-1567409203.jpg
Read: 1124     12:00     02 Сентябрь 2019    

Zahra Halo made the heartbreaking decision to flee Islamic State with most of her children while one of her sons had been missing for years. Now, she has found him and wants to bring him home.

Zahra Halo is a mother who knows how to fight. She has learnt how to suffer, too.

For years she has battled to keep her children safe and her family together.

Her youngest son, Hazim, was missing for almost five years.

Now, she has found him and has just one last step to bring him home — securing a visa through the Department of Home Affairs.

A family separated

Ms Halo was captured along with her husband, four daughters and Hazim when Islamic State raided Shingal in northern Iraq in 2014, killing and raping at will — only her eldest son, Hasan, escaped.

She sobs as she tells her story.

Zahra Halo says it was a very difficult decision to come to Australia.

“It was a disaster. It was a disaster for the Ezidi people.”

For hundreds of years the Ezidi (the Halo family prefers Ezidi to the more commonly used Yazidi) have been a stateless persecuted minority.

The Australian Parliament called Islamic State’s assault on the Ezidi a genocide.

Ms Halo’s husband was separated from her. She has not heard from him since.

Eleven-year-old Hazim was also taken from his family, and it would be almost five years before they could contact him again.

Ms Halo and her eldest daughter Haseeba, 17, were sold as slaves, and nine-year-old Lina was struck in the head when warplanes bombed the prison where they were being held.

We were trying to stop her bleeding with only tissues.

“It was really, really horrible — they took two of my kids and the other one was injured in my hands.”

Lina survived and was eventually moved with her mother and two sisters to Raqqa, Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold, and held as slaves for 11 months.

They were regularly abused and ordered to convert to Islam, Ms Halo said.

But when they tried to take Lina away, she decided to risk everything and flee.

Lina was nine years old and they were trying to marry her to a 45-year-old man, so I escaped.

After a long and hazardous journey — during which people she sought help from had sold them for ransom — Ms Halo arrived in Iraq and reunited with Hasan, who had survived alone for almost a year.

It would be another two years before Haseeba was released after her Islamic State captors were defeated in Mosul.

1tv.ge





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