Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Three Syrian Women Who Got Married to ISIS Foreigners Tell their Stories | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Via Asharq Al-Awsat


Ain Issa Camp, Raqqa- In an isolated room in Ain Issa Camp – 50 kilometers north Raqqa – three Syrian women sat while dressed in black. Beside them sat children whose ages are three years or less and none of them has an official birth certificate.

They got married to foreign members from ISIS and didn’t know this is where they will end up.

Souad – in her thirties – said: “I had a dream to become an English teacher: to teach kids, translate stories and international novels.” Then, she lit a cigarette and continued: “I started smoking ten years ago, and I never quit smoking even when I was living in Raqqa where ISIS members banned smoking and punished for it.”

“I met my Moroccan husband as I was walking once in a street in Raqqa. He proposed and we got married in summer 2015,” Souad continued.

Nour, 22, moved to live with her family in Raqqa in 2007 and that is where she met her Malaysian husband and got married. “At the beginning I refused then I accepted because he is a religious person,” she added.

On the contrary, Khansae said that she had no choice.

“A Tunisian ISIS member proposed and my father accepted as if he was the charming prince. My mother stood by my side but was incapable to do anything,” she narrated.

These three women have poor hope, as they gaze upon their vague future and the future of their children that is even more complex than theirs.