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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Three young girls whose father is on death row for having links with the Islamic State (ISIS) group have been left without both parents after being abandoned by their mother in Kirkuk, family and a local official say.
Enas, Ekhlas, and Nergiz, aged seven, five, and three years old respectively, were found on the streets of Kirkuk this week along with a message purportedly penned by their mother to whoever found the deserted siblings.
“I don't want these kids, because they can't be part of my new life,” the letter read.
Yawar Alla Wardi, chief of Kirkuk's Qoriya neighborhood told Rudaw on Friday that the three children were found by local security forces and are now staying in his house, as per a court order.
“These three children were thrown away by their mother on Thursday night, and after the security forces found them, the court ordered for them to stay in my house, as the mukhtar [chief] of the neighborhood which they were found,” Wardi said. “The three children stayed with my children last night and they will stay here for a while to see if their mother will come back for them, or for the court to decide their fate.”
The sisters and both parents fled Saladin province for Kirkuk at the end of 2016, before the father was arrested and sent to prison in the distant southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar - where he is on death row for links with ISIS, the children's paternal grandmother Khadija Obied told Rudaw on Friday. The children and their mother had since stayed at Khadija's home.
But Khadija said she is unable to take on the responsibility of raising them on her own, and called on the release of their father for their safe upbringing.
“I call on the government to release their father so the family can reunite and prevent the children from becoming victims of society, as I'm unable to raise the children,” Obied said.
“My son is in prison and he is unjustly on death row,” she added. “My son was a government employee in electricity department when ISIS took control, and they prevented him from leaving."
Eldest sibling Enas told Rudaw on Friday that she has no idea of her mother's whereabouts, and does not want to see her father.
“I do not know where my mother is, and my father is in prison,” Enas said. “I have never seen my father, though my mother used to describe him for us, but I don’t want to see my father,”
The family originally lived under ISIS control of Saladin province - part of the swathe of Iraqi and Syrian territory controlled by the extremist militant group from the summer of 2014 onwards.
Although the Iraqi government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in December 2017, remnants of the group have since returned to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations in Kirkuk, Saladin, Diyala, and Nineveh provinces.
The group is now most active in Iraq’s remote deserts, mountains, and in territories disputed by the federal government and the autonomous Kurdish region, where a wide security vacuum has opened up.
In a 49-minute video published on an ISIS propaganda channel on messaging app Telegram last week – titled ‘Strike the Necks’ – a masked militant holding an assault rifle says ISIS will scale up its attacks on Iraqi police and security forces.
ISIS will stage mass prison breaks to release its supporters held in Iraq’s jails, the militant also said, allowing the group's ranks to swell and undo years of counter-terror work.
“We came to behead you and burn your houses, and I want to let our brothers and sisters in the prisons of infidels know that we have not forgotten you and we ask you to be patient," they added. "We will come for you, because it is an obligation to set you free from the infidels.”
Reporting by Hiwa Hossamuddin
Enas, Ekhlas, and Nergiz, aged seven, five, and three years old respectively, were found on the streets of Kirkuk this week along with a message purportedly penned by their mother to whoever found the deserted siblings.
“I don't want these kids, because they can't be part of my new life,” the letter read.
Yawar Alla Wardi, chief of Kirkuk's Qoriya neighborhood told Rudaw on Friday that the three children were found by local security forces and are now staying in his house, as per a court order.
“These three children were thrown away by their mother on Thursday night, and after the security forces found them, the court ordered for them to stay in my house, as the mukhtar [chief] of the neighborhood which they were found,” Wardi said. “The three children stayed with my children last night and they will stay here for a while to see if their mother will come back for them, or for the court to decide their fate.”
The sisters and both parents fled Saladin province for Kirkuk at the end of 2016, before the father was arrested and sent to prison in the distant southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar - where he is on death row for links with ISIS, the children's paternal grandmother Khadija Obied told Rudaw on Friday. The children and their mother had since stayed at Khadija's home.
But Khadija said she is unable to take on the responsibility of raising them on her own, and called on the release of their father for their safe upbringing.
“I call on the government to release their father so the family can reunite and prevent the children from becoming victims of society, as I'm unable to raise the children,” Obied said.
“My son is in prison and he is unjustly on death row,” she added. “My son was a government employee in electricity department when ISIS took control, and they prevented him from leaving."
Eldest sibling Enas told Rudaw on Friday that she has no idea of her mother's whereabouts, and does not want to see her father.
“I do not know where my mother is, and my father is in prison,” Enas said. “I have never seen my father, though my mother used to describe him for us, but I don’t want to see my father,”
The family originally lived under ISIS control of Saladin province - part of the swathe of Iraqi and Syrian territory controlled by the extremist militant group from the summer of 2014 onwards.
Although the Iraqi government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in December 2017, remnants of the group have since returned to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations in Kirkuk, Saladin, Diyala, and Nineveh provinces.
The group is now most active in Iraq’s remote deserts, mountains, and in territories disputed by the federal government and the autonomous Kurdish region, where a wide security vacuum has opened up.
In a 49-minute video published on an ISIS propaganda channel on messaging app Telegram last week – titled ‘Strike the Necks’ – a masked militant holding an assault rifle says ISIS will scale up its attacks on Iraqi police and security forces.
ISIS will stage mass prison breaks to release its supporters held in Iraq’s jails, the militant also said, allowing the group's ranks to swell and undo years of counter-terror work.
“We came to behead you and burn your houses, and I want to let our brothers and sisters in the prisons of infidels know that we have not forgotten you and we ask you to be patient," they added. "We will come for you, because it is an obligation to set you free from the infidels.”
Reporting by Hiwa Hossamuddin
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