Raqqa a year under control of ISIS

A year has passed over the city of Raqqa, under the rule of ISIS, the landmarks were lost, and the details were different, that year did not consist of days and months, it was empty from the light, full of destruction and tyranny, killing and arrest was its day, and injustice was its night, ISIS tried to blur identity and crush personality, they wanted to convert Raqqa to Tora Bora mountains and caves of Kabul, even humans or stone was not in safe from them, they wanted to recruit all women of the city in the project of al-Khansa battalion, and children to be the fuel for their barbarity fire.

Um Abdul Rahman told us the story of her son – Abdul Rahman – 9 years, she explained how the manifestations of ISIS and their mercenaries has influenced him a lot, even he was imagine himself one of princes of ISIS, so he applied their actions at home, abdul rahman, who nicknamed himself as Abu Zubair al-Ansari, demanded his family to call him this name, and he described his mother as an infidel and apostate because she did not let him to join ISIS camps which recruit children, and he threatened to slaughter her for this refusing, she said that “ISIS versions, which offers in the streets of Raqqa have affected him very much , and I’m thinking seriously to leave the city to keep the remainder of childhood inside my son”.

Ali, a university student, who was forced by ISIS to leave the studying of law, which the organization considered it as a blasphemous subject, he was arrested as he returned from his university, ” I am having a beard and wearing Afghan dress which is the customary clothes of ISIS, I do not like this look, but I want to make them satisfied on me after I was an infidel in their eyes for studying law, I wish to return to the last year, where I felt my humanity and my freedom, I felt that I was a Syrian not a Chechen”. he said to the team of “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently”.

ISIS does not affect only the humans, Churches was closed on the hands of them, so the Christians have deprived from practice their religion, and they made them a despised minority, after they were a component from the population of the province of Raqqa, ISIS imposed them the tribute, and they were hearing the word “infidels” using to describe them by the members of the organization but they were not able to utter a word, Jwan one of the followers of Catholic community, told us about his sufferance: “Maybe I was an infidel in their eyes, but I was right in my eyes, I’m not an infidel, I would not say that all Muslims are infidels, because they only do not follow my religion, I’ve seen how the Muslims have treated me without any discrimination, I wish the Lord to forgive my negligence in performing acts of worship, I have forced to do so.

Children have shared the largest part of ISIS injustice, since not too long some children slaughtered birds and crucified them, placing a paper saying:”an apostate who fought the Islamic state,” referring to incidents of executions carried out by ISIS in front of everyone eyes, and another group of children brought a stick and hit a donkey in the street, and when a member of the team of “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently” asked them for the reason, they answered him: “we whipped it because it smokes” in a tradition to ISIS members who whipped everyone smokes in the province.

Because of ignorance, ISIS members wanted each one of those around them to become like them, so they closed the schools and prevent education in the province of Raqqa, and put sanctions against who proved that he gave lessons in secret, therefore ignorance and illiteracy must be rampant in the community which ruled by ISIS, because they do not want there to be an educated nation can think scientifically, but they want a generation only thinking how to blow himself up.

Women of the city have thousands of tragedies and woes, like forced marriage from ISIS members, underage marriage, whipping and torture committed against them for the simplest reasons, battalion of al-Khansa , which is competent to prosecute women, innovated new methods of humiliation and pleasure of torturing them, and perhaps the story of the iron “biter” which consists of two sharp jaws and placed on the chest of women and pressed strongly, it is considered the worst case against women of the city, al-Khansa battalion did not only torture them physically, but it wanted to crash them psychologically also.

Barbarism stories abounded at the hands of ISIS, and it continue to blur Raqqa landmarks and separating it from Syria, and hide any evidence referred to the province last year, a year passed which all dropped it from the date of Raqqa, everyone reject this reality and all of them are hopeful that they will wake up from this dream one day.