Appeal asks for you to help Yazidi girls who escaped ISIS

A Channel 4 Dispatches film ‘Escape from ISIS’ drew yet more attention to the plight of Yazidi women, and young girls, captured by ISIS and subjected to horrific violence and psychological damage.

British charity the AMAR International Charitable Foundation is today launching an appeal to raise £500,000 to help provide women subjected to violence, sexual abuse and mental trauma.

The money will provide counselling and psychological treatment to help them get on with their girls.

There are around 5,000 Yazidi women and girls who are have been kidnapping, then bought and sold like livestock in the Islamic State, according to their accounts as well as the accounts on non-Yazidis who have witnessed first hand the abuse, and escaped the Islamic State to tell of the crimes. Some of the girls are raped and tortured everyday.

“He burnt me with cigarettes on my shoulders, my stomach and my legs,” 22 year-old Noor told the charity AMAR.

“I didn’t even have the strength to speak after that, so he raped me. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mum. I was in so much pain. I felt numb,” she said.

There is a shortage of psychiatrists to help these who suffered under ISIS’s brutal violence and well-documented war-crimes. The appeal for funding it is hoped will deliver long-term support, and provide training to GPs.

Edward Watts, who made the Channel 4 film ‘Escape from ISIS’, said: “Experienced psychologists working in Iraq told me they have never witnessed trauma cases of such severity on such a scale. And yet, you can literally count the number of psychologists available to help the victims on the fingers of one hand. They urgently need more support.”